Chaotic Evil
by Jester Of Doom
Summary: A Ranma and Hellsing crossover. After going to England instead of China to train Ranma ends up getting bitten by a certain smirking master of darkness. *Warning: I spelled Hellsing names based off way old fansubs; I wont be changing them any time soon*
1. Death and Rebirth

As time flows the multiverse branches in every direction with new worlds with new pasts due to the actions of the present are born. Any act, be it the destruction of a solar system to simply deciding to wake up a few minutes later can have a staggering, or equally likely an inconsequential, effect on the world. Take for example if you will a simple misplacement of a training manual by a shop keeper. Truly anything is a possibility.

Chaotic Evil Part 1. Death and Rebirth By the Jester of Doom

Disclaimer: all characters used in this story belong to their really respective authors but for now I have stolen them, I'm a kleptomaniac and damn proud of it.

Genma checked the man at the counter, good he wasn't looking. The boy wasn't looking either, this would be too easy. He would only need a cheap trick to get what he wanted this time. he smirked a little at his own genius. He could get the knowledge needed to finish the boys training and all he had to do was steal a pamphlet that nobody would notice was missing.

Genma picked up the guide to Chinese training grounds and the copy behind it and made a quick movement to flick the second one down his sleeve. He continued to look over the manual in his hand before placing it back on the rack it was on. He had what he needed and no one would know the difference.

"Come on boy, we can't be wasting our time shopping." Genma called to his son who was looking through the stores foodstuffs.

"Huh, ya said we were getting supplies pop." Ranma said knowing that the promise of food had been too good to be true. All Genma seemed to think was necessary were rice and sake. Well he guessed it might have been because he always seemed to get free food from people, he would just talk to them for a while get food and they would leave. It was surprising how generous they all were.

"Your going soft boy!" Genma taunted his son. "True martial artists live off the land!" Genma decided he needed to get them out of there fast, the boy had a habit of questioning him lately and he was sure the next question was going to be why the came into the store in the first place, something the owner would also want to know he was sure. "Well if your so worried about food than how about this; a race to the camp winner gets the others dinner."

"Your on old man, hope ya like bein' hungry." Then Genma took off and Ranma followed right behind him. the owner of the store had a sinking suspicion he had been robbed but he had watched the boy the whole time and the old man had only been in reach of the travel booklets and they were only about 50 yen each, he was sure the boy hadn't taken anything so he just shrugged off the feeling, after all who would go through the trouble to rob him of something worth 50 yen?

-----

Genma sat to the side of the fire looking at the booklet in his hands while his son slept. His stomach more full than usual after having won his bet with his son. A simple hit to the back of the head while Ranma was passing him and he received double his usual portion of food. He thought hard over the problem at hand.

The guide he had stolen hadn't been so much a training manual for China as…well… a tour guide for England. He thought over the material contained in the brochure. He could possibly train the boy there anyway, according to this he had already come up with one of the perfect training techniques for Anything Goes as well as several other possible ways to train him there.

Yes it could work, he might just be able to finish their journey with this, and then he could relax in the lap of luxury for the rest of his life, courtesy of Ranma's hard work of course.

-----

They looked out over the valley to the right of them; hundreds of pools with bamboo rods sticking from them filled it. Both stopped for a moment to look at the surreal landscape. "Hey pops any clue where we are?"

"Stop talking and get back to studying boy!" Genma grumbled as he started off to the west again.

"Why the heck do I have ta learn English anyway?" complained Ranma. It wasn't part of the art so he had no clue why his old man had suddenly made him start learning it. However he didn't mind learning it, sure it wasn't fun but at least he would know what everyone was saying when they got to England.

Genma slammed his fist down on Ranma's head. "I said get back to studying boy! If your gonna talk, speak English!" then Genma proceeded to start jogging off toward a distant village in hope of stealing…finding free food.

Ranma lowly grumbled that his father was fat, lazy, and stupid in English as he set off with his father doing a light jog while reading an English textbook.

-  
AN: Everything unless otherwise mentioned is in English from here on

"That's got to be the stupidest reason to walk to England ya could've possibly come up with old man!" Ranma angrily yelled at his father who had just explained. Before him there was a man standing at attention and wearing a red and black uniform and a ridiculously large furry hat. The reason for his anger was that he had just walked to England from Japan only to insult the man in front of him.

"What are you talking about boy? If you can perfect your insults and taunts enough to anger these men than you will have an unbeatable attack. With this training you will be able to topple even the most skilled fighters without a single punch." How could his ungrateful son not understand his genius? The Anything Goes style meant using any way to win so naturally making your opponents too angry to fight would be the perfect technique. And who better to train on than someone trained to ignore all insults no matter how devastating?

"It's still the stupidest thing I ever heard!" he found the idea itself sound but dragging him here just for it was just plain moronic. He understood the power of insults due to his training, and he understood that the guards here were supposed to be the best at taking insults, hell this was at least a more effective training idea than having him stop at supposedly legendary training grounds that Genma had found on the way and simply practice the same old stuff against his old man, but couldn't he have just insulted somebody back in Japan? It all just seemed like a big waste of time. Then he sighed when he remembered he had absolutely nothing else to do and agreed to do the training "But since ya dragged me here anyway I guess I'll try it."

For several hours Ranma verbally attacked the guard, receiving mocking advice from Genma occasionally. He had also gathered a small crowd, and recently caused one or two of his audience with weaker constitutions to faint from his rapidly improving vocal abilities. The guard however was completely unmoved by the display, he didn't so much as flinch to the vilest things that had ever been said to him.

After a change in guards Ranma continued his verbal beating on his new target. He had become very skilled from all of this really, he was actually surprised that for once one of his pops ideas had worked out this well and he hadn't even been brutally attacked yet. Genma himself was surprised at how well Ranma was doing; he even was having trouble stomaching some of what Ranma was now throwing at the guard. He looked up as Ranma suddenly stopped what he was doing and was looking down the street to his left.

"Hey pop, that guy look familiar to you?" he asked pointing to a rapidly approaching man with anger clearly showing on his face. For some reason Ranma had the oddest felling he should know the man he was looking at.

Genma looked where his son indicated and saw people stepping out of the way of a man who was charging straight toward them. "Yes he does look a bit familiar." Genma thought a moment more before he realized who it was. "Well son I just remembered I have to go look into other training for you." He said before he suddenly ran off.

Ranma sighed and wondered who the old man could have pissed off now. He looked more closely at the man who was now much closer, Ranma knew he should know that face; maybe it was just different hair or clothing that was confusing him. He continued to wonder until the man reached him and took a swing at his head. Realizing the man was after him not Genma he quickly remembered the only person he had pissed off here in London, he just didn't look the same without the uniform and big furry hat.

-----

"So you can really make me the strongest fighter alive?" Ranma asked the man who had led him into the room he was now in, a back room in an old abandoned building. His pop had found this guy in some bar and after mentioning his journey and, while more than a little drunk, was easily convinced that this man could make anyone into an unbeatable fighter.

The man in question had skin of a very unnatural shade of grey, black hair, and a face that set new boundaries to the word ugly. For some reason Ranma couldn't understand he got the creeps just looking at him, normally the only thing that creeped him out was cats. The demonic looking man ignored Ranma's question as he walked toward the chair Ranma was seated in.

"This ain't got nothin' to do with c-c-c-cats right? If it does I'm leaving now. Ain't no way I'm repeating the neko-ken." Ranma asked a bit worried that his uneasiness might be due to some unseen cats.

The man ignored him as he reached the side of his chair. With total disregard for Ranma's willingness he grabbed Ranma's head by the hair and pulled it up and sideways. Ranma allowed him to continue but clenched his muscles in preparation for anything, but for the moment as long as he didn't pull fish sausages out Ranma was sure he would be fine with the training. Suddenly he felt something stick his neck. While it was actually the man who had bitten him Ranma, still worrying about cats, let his imagination run away with him. Whatever had sunk its teeth into his flesh had fangs that hurt like hell, like a cat. Whatever it was now made his flesh crawl with fear, like a cat.

Ranma quickly pushed the man away from him with a force that would have incapacitated if not killed most people while jumping straight up and clinging to the ceiling where he quickly surveyed the room for the feline fiend who had attacked. A part of his mind idly noted that somehow the man he had pushed had not been thrown back but simply forced to take a step back due to the force of his blow, but it didn't really matter to him in this fear induced state. He quickly finished searching the room and upon finding nothing calmed down enough to hear the man he had hit talking in a deep voice that sounded somewhat like rocks in a blender.

"What the hell are you?" the man on the floor asked the boy as he dropped back to the floor cautiously. He placed his hand behind his back and on the handle of his gun incase this proved troublesome, that punch had hurt, he could take it of course but it still hurt!

"Wadda ya mean what am I? I'm a martial artist; why else would I be here? I gotta say I'm impressed ya took that hit so well, I'd love to see how ya did that without bein ready."

"Huh, that lie wont work on me! I'm not stupid enough to think a human could actually be that strong! Your gonna regret trying to attack me!" stepping back a few feet he drew his gun from his belt and quickly fired at Ranma's head.

Ranma barely was able to avoid the shot which skimmed his cheek as he dodged to the side. That was a serious threat. Ranma knew his limits pretty well and he was sure even he wasn't bullet proof, hell he doubted even that though kid from his junior high school could take a bullet without serious injury. Normally in a misunderstanding he would just let the people work out their anger attacking him but with his opponent armed he had no choice but to stop this as fast as he could.

With a sudden burst of speed the young martial artist managed to avoid the next shot at him and close the distance between him and his assailant in less than a second. He grabbed the gun in the mans hand and attempted to throw it out of his grip but the man's grip was better than what Ranma had expected so the man was caught off guard and sent flying through the air and into the back wall of the building with gun still in hand. The man fell to the floor but quickly recovered and once again took aim at Ranma.

Once again Ranma quickly dodged another two bullets as he sprinted towards the man. He was now fairly sure of the other man's strength and guessed that a hard shoulder-slam into the wall behind him at the speed he was moving would knock him out or at least disarm him. As he slammed into the man though the only effect was causing a large hole to be formed in the wall as they both went through it. Once Ranma had extracted himself from the rubble from the now collapsed wall he saw his opponent was slightly stunned by the attack but still conscious and still moving.

Trying to disarm his opponent while he was off guard Ranma ran toward the man who was laying on his back on the ground. However while reaching to grab the gun still in the man's hand the man seemed to realize how close he was to being disarmed and fired in desperation. "AARGH!" Ranma yelled in pain as he was caught in his still extended left arm. He only had a moment to stop and grab his arm where the bullet had entered before he had to dodge the last shot that the gun held which despite his reflexes still took out a small chunk of flesh on the left side of his torso.

Everyone has their limits and for a certain Saotome being shot was most definitely crossing the boundary between friendly battle and an actual attempt to harm or kill. He had hoped that he could stop the fight peacefully after disarming the man but now it was a serious fight even without the gun involved. Ranma reoriented himself toward his enemy and took up a stance more suited for kicks than punches now that his left arm was injured.

His opponent noticing how his arm was still bleeding and showing no signs of healing sneered at him. "Hah, you thought you could take me on when you're so weak it takes time for your wounds to heal? I'll rip you apart with my bare hands without even breaking a sweat!" feeling that this would be an easy fight the demonic man charged forward and committed himself to a punch at Ranma's head. Ranma easily jumped over the man's attack then used his head as a springboard to triangle jump off a nearby wall and onto the roof of the building he had just busted out of.

Ranma took a second to look down and wait for pursuit. However he was surprised to see the man attempt a triangle jump to follow him only to fall back down to the ground. It seemed his opponent wasn't skilled at fighting he was probably just as good as a common brawler but with more strength and endurance to back it up. He was abruptly cut off from his thoughts as his opponent surprisingly dug his fingers and feet into the stone wall of the building and scaled the wall. He quickly looked at his surroundings and decided the roof would not be a good place to fight, too much clutter up there, what he really needed was a good open street to fight in. noticing his opponent had reached the roof Ranma hopped back covering fifteen feet and then jumped onto a nearby roof to the west, away from the setting sun, hoping to lead his attacker to a nice empty piece of road. After only a minute of searching and being followed he found an intersection with no cars in the immediate area and jumped down, startling the people who saw him.

Soon after he reached the ground his opponent landed right where he had been standing a moment before, he had obviously hopped he could crush Ranma when he landed. Ranma had simply taken a step backwards and now had a shot at his unprotected back. Ranma quickly rained down punches faster than anyone should have been able to with only one arm then delivered a strong kick to the side of the torso which caused the victim of the assault to fall on his other side.

Rolling after having hit the ground the as of yet unnamed man came back up to his feet and tried to retaliate with a punch to the chest that should have killed most mortals which Ranma was able to block but was still sent flying back into a wall. As he shook off the effects of the attack, he was just a little stunned at how hard he had been hit and his arm had burnt with pain from it being slammed into the building when he flew back.

At seeing Ranma be thrown into the stone wall so hard he actually cracked it the people watching had good enough sense to leave instead of watching the fight. However as most people began to leave one individual showed up particularly because of this fight. On the top of a roof overlooking the intersection a pair of orange glasses quickly phased into being and were shortly followed by a man in a red coat who was smiling evilly down at the scene in front of him.

He had been sent in alone after reports of two men with super human abilities fighting in public; obviously the institute could not send troops into the public streets to deal with the problem so he alone had been sent. He watched as the more human looking of the two leapt and delivered a devastating kick to the head of the one that looked more true to his vampiric nature. He gave off a slight sigh; both of them were low level and would give him no challenge.

Not caring for how easy finishing them would be but obeying his masters orders to stop them immediately he quickly let two bullets fly. Both combatants turned toward the source of the noise and the more human one tried to dodge the shot but was hit in the stomach, his opponent was hit in the chest directly through the heart. The more demonic of the two quickly turned to dust while the other simply fell to the ground with a large hole in his abdomen produced by the 13mm exploding bullet.

As a few seconds passed the gunman became steadily more sure that he had just killed a vampire and mortally wounded a human. It was true he was hitting harder and taking more damage than a human should have been able to but it was only enough to qualify him as a low level vampire, not enough to withstand a exploding blessed bullet. If he had been a higher level than he would have at least started to heal after a few seconds but was still downed. More importantly though now that he felt for it he could sense no blood on the boys hands despite his obvious strength. Intrigued by the boy dieing in the street he disappeared and reappeared next to him.

Ranma was tying to understand a new level of pain, the bullet from earlier had hurt but whatever had just hit him had been like a condensed teaching of the cat-fist. He knew that he was going to die, nobody could have lived through that, but even with his knowledge of this he fought to try to drag himself toward a building with a phone in it, he knew he couldn't walk he couldn't feel his legs and knew that his spine had just been utterly destroyed. He was on his stomach pulling his way up the curb with his right arm when his head, which was held down teeth clenched in pain, suddenly bumped into he hadn't seen there a moment ago. He turned up his head to see a man in a red coat bending down towards him with amusement clearly showing on his face.

Before Ranma had a chance to ask for help the man over him had started talking. "You might be strong for a human but you won't live through that." He stated simply. "But if you don't want to die you can become like me." He had been wanting a student lately, bothering humans is only so amusing, and this boy seemed like he would make an excellent nightwalker.

For Ranma it was a very easy choice, his vision was blurring and he was about to die anyway so he couldn't be any worse off due to whatever the man tried. Not trusting himself to be able to speak he simply nodded his head in acceptance. As soon as he had done this he felt himself lifted up and his neck being stretched out. This time as the fangs broke his flesh he didn't have the energy to panic and try to escape. As the world finally swirled out of view due to blood loss he felt a coldness flooding his body like all his body-heat had left him. For a moment he thought that it must be like this to die but had to abruptly stop that line of thought as unconsciousness washed over him.

-----

When Ranma woke again he found himself being carried through the corridors of a large building. He did a quick check of his body to find that the hole in his stomach was gone, he was almost exactly like his old self, he however was now very cold and though he had not noticed it now sported an impressive set of fangs. "Ugh, how am I still alive?" he asked the man.

The man seeing that the boy he carried was now awake and totally healed set him down and answered his questions with a smirk appearing on his face. "You aren't. Vampires are the undead." he then proceeded down the hall.

Ranma took a moment to process that. He had very little understanding of magic, monsters, and the super natural but he new a small bit about vampires, he had always just thought they were myths like curses, phoenix, dragons, and magical princes. But despite his best efforts at thought he could only think of supernatural forces being able to heal him like this. After all he knew he shouldn't be alive now… well he wasn't but he shouldn't be moving at least.

Ranma saw the man turn through a doorway down the hall and quickly hurried after him. Upon entering the room behind him he immediately asked "Wait a minute how the heck did ya make me a vampire?" as he finished speaking he noticed a blonde-haired woman sitting behind a large desk, smoking a small cigar whose eyebrows suddenly drew up questioningly.

"Yes Alucard, how exactly did this boy become a vampire?" the woman behind the desk directed a withering glare at Alucard.

Completely unfazed by her look, and in fact smirking he replied "I'm surprised; I would have at least thought you would know how humans are turned Master."

"Hilarious," she stated while still holding her glare in place. "Now is there a reason you would like to mention before I have Walter pull out your fangs?"

"My, aren't we cranky today? You humans are always losing your temper so easily if you get too little sleep."

"Alucard!"

"Very well, if you must know after you sent me after your two vampires I eliminated the both of them and then discovered he was human. You're always preaching about saving lives so I turned him instead."

"And how could you have just mistaken him for a vampire?" she asked determined not to let him pin this on her.

"Well you humans don't generally survive being thrown into rock walls so hard they crack without a scratch on them. If you really don't want it to happen again you could always release me so I don't have to lift the seal for even my most basic abilities." At the last part his smirk grew to proportions that would put a certain Cheshire Cat to shame.

She decided to ignore him and instead question the boy, god knows this was probably a great joke to him; who did he think he was talking to, she would never believe someone could take a hit that cracked a stone wall. "Do you remember what happened?" she asked having turned to him and let a little of her harsh look subside.

Ranma who hadn't understood the whole conversation simply recounted everything that had occurred. "… and then out of nowhere some asshole shoots the two of us."

"That would be Alucard." Supplied the woman, who was only slightly more inclined to believe Ranma after hearing the story he just told than to believe Alucard.

Ranma turned on the man who he had thought had only saved him. "Ya mean you're the jackass who did that! What the hell'd I do to deserve being shot!"

Alucard shrugged "you seemed to be a vampire."

"What kind of excuse is that!" Ranma yelled exasperatedly.

Seeing that he didn't know the dangers of vampires the woman decided it best to educate him on them a little. "Well…I don't believe you introduced yourself yet."

"Oh…sorry about that, I'm Ranma, Ranma Saotome."

"Well Ranma I'm Sir Integral Wingates Hellsing. The reason behind your attack is that vampires are a threat to the living. They are evil demons with reason and logic that drink the blood of those helpless to stop them, killing them in the process. Over a decade ago my ancestors formed the Hellsing Institute to help eliminate the vampire threat."

Ranma turned on Alucard again. "You turned me into an evil bloodsucking demon!"

Alucard simply started smirking again so Integral answered for him. "He didn't change your personality so as long as you were not evil before you are not now, however you will require blood to drink if you want to remain healthy. If you are willing to aid us in our cause and hold back your instincts to suck people's blood we will supply you with medical blood."

"So unless I work here I have to suck people's blood and if I work here I have to kill vampires… ether way I have to kill. Isn't there some way I can just stop the vampires if I work for ya or somethin', not kill them?" Ranma asked desperately not wanting to have to kill anything.

Integral shook her head slowly. She was actually a bit surprised most people were all for killing demons and saving people not trying to save both. "The vampires we hunt kill by choice, not by need. The only way to protect innocent people from them is to destroy them."

Ranma struggled with the idea, it was what he had been taught, martial artists save innocents and destroy demons, but he just couldn't accept the idea of killing not even demons. "You're sure there ain't some way?"

"Yes. I can tell it's hard for you to accept this but its ether allows a few killers or hundreds of innocents to live."

The decision was already made in Ranma's mind but he still had a little trouble coping with it; he would protect the helpless, allowing harm to befall them was out of the question and ignoring the problem would only allow the evil vampires to have free reign. "Then I guess I have no choice, on my honor as a martial artist I'll protect the helpless and help you destroy the vampires."

"Welcome to Hellsing Ranma. For now go with Alucard to get something to eat, by morning a room will be ready for you. Alucard make sure you tell him what he needs to know about vampires for the time being, make sure he won't go and accidentally kill himself. I'll continue this with you later Alucard."

"As you command master." Alucard responded smiling widely as he turned around and began to leave with Ranma following behind him.

"What'd she mean so I don't go and accidentally kill myself?" he couldn't help but ask as he wandered down the halls with Alucard leading him.

"Just don't touch anything silver, blessed, or any garlic or go out into the sun for long and you should be fine unless someone tries to kill you. For now until you gain some power just you're almost as weak as a human but those are the easy killers of the freshly turned."

"Well that's kind of creepy I was planning on eating some garlic pasta for dinner tonight." Ranma said shivering slightly. Alucard chuckled and whished he hadn't told him, watching him try to eat it would have been probably been as amusing as scaring the rookies.

By this time they had reached a door in the basement which Alucard opened to reveal a large storage room with a horizontal fridge against the nearest wall and shelves full of boxes filling the rest of the room. "Well from now on you won't be eating food, you'll have this instead." He said as he opened the fridge to reveal rows of plastic packs filled with medical blood. He picked one up and tossed it to Ranma then took one for himself, bit off the top of the straw like tube at the top, and started to drink.

Ranma looked at the pack for a second but quickly dismissed any thoughts that drinking it would be wrong, after all he was hungry and this is what he was supposed to eat, and it wasn't like anyone was killed to get it so it was a bit like drinking milk. Ranma copied Alucard in biting off the top and started drinking it. He was a bit surprised by the taste, it was nothing like his own blood he had tasted while training with his pop, actually it tasted pretty good, the taste was mot like anything he'd tasted before though, and that's saying something for someone who ate as much as Ranma did. After finishing he placed the empty pack in a small hazardous-material container which Alucard had already dropped his into. He was surprised at just how filling a little pack like that could be, he was actually not even a little hungry anymore.

Soon after Ranma had finished Alucard turned to the far wall. "I'll see you tomorrow night about your training." Before Ranma could ask him what training he abruptly walked out of the room through the wall. In most cases that was a very impressive trick to someone the first time around and Ranma was no exception. Even knowing Alucard was a vampire he couldn't help but be stunned for a few minutes. Wanting to try it himself Ranma walked to the wall and tried to push himself through it but it remained solid as the rocks it was made of. He decided that he would have to ask about that tomorrow.

He sat down to consider what he was going to do now, somehow he couldn't help but think pop wouldn't like the idea of him having to stay in England but its not like he was willing to travel if it meant drinking peoples blood. He spent the next several hours trying to come up with reasons to stay his old man would listen to but the best he could think of was if he became a stronger vampire he would be unbeatable but he couldn't help but think that excuse would only last for a month or two.

His thoughts were ended as a man with black pants and vest over a long-sleeved white shirt and a monocle over his left eye entered the room. "Mr. Saotome, I'm Walter. Your room has been prepared. If you will, follow me." He then turned and walked out with Ranma following behind him. "Lady Integral has told me to take good care of you." He said as he led Ranma through the passages of the basement.

"Sorry you had to go to the trouble of preparing a room for me."

Walter opened the door of a room "It was no trouble at all. I hope it suits your needs, it should not receive any light and when you want to sleep during the day just press the button on the bed and its hood lowers."

Ranma stepped in and looked over the room, blank rock walls, a table and chair, a nightstand with a phone on it, a small bathroom attached and a large bed. What was in it though wasn't what was important, although his own bed was something he had always wanted, what was important is he actually had his own room. He definitely liked the idea of having a room. "It's great Walter thanks."

"I suggest you get to sleep it will be dawn soon."

"Ok, thanks again goodnight…err…I guess I mean good day." Ranma said well hopping onto the bed and hitting the button to lower the hood.

"Good day Mr. Saotome." Said Walter before turning and leaving the room tuning out the light and closing the door behind him.

Ranma was asleep in minutes. During the night he dreamt of everything that had happened to him in his life up until the present.

-----

#Wake up.# came a voice that disrupted his sleep.

"Another five minutes Pop." Ranma mumbled while still dreaming

#Wake up!# came the voice again with less patience.

"It's too early Pop"

#WAKE UP!# yelled the voice.

Ranma bolted upright in surprise only to bang his head on the hood which was still down. "Ite…wadda you do that for?" he asked while hitting the button to raise the hood and holding his head.

The only response to his question was the sound of chuckling in his head. #Oh man I hit my head so hard I'm hearing things.# Ranma thought to himself and the chuckling increased for a moment before the voice spoke to him again.

#Yes it must have been pretty hard if it made you hear voices before you even hit it.#

#Alucard is that you? Are you able to read my mind or something?# then Ranma remembered he had dreamed of his entire life while he was asleep, far too long and vivid to be normal. #Have you been messing with my head?# he accused the voice.

#Of course it's me, how many humans can do this, and yes I can read minds, you might be able to learn how in a few months as well. Now hurry up and get to the firing range, I'll tell you the way as you go.#

Ranma grumbled as he got up and followed the directions, completely forgetting that his third question was left unanswered.

-----

Ranma entered the firing range to see it empty save for Alucard, who was leaning against the wall looking bored. "So why'd ya want me ta come here?" Ranma asked surveying the room. There were metal cabinets lining the wall that stretched out in front of him, a counter running till the far wall parallel to the cabinets and broken into many pieces by small dividing walls, and back on the other side of the counter were hanging targets.

"My master wants you trained in proper weapon use." Alucard said as he straightened and opened the cabinet he had been leaning on. Reaching in he pulled out a Desert Eagle and threw it to Ranma who easily caught it and several magazines that he threw after it.

Ranma stood there for a moment not sure of what to do now. Alucard upon reading his thoughts sighed, he had never had to teach anything before, his only other student had simply been left to learn everything on his own, that's probably why he had been destroyed so easily too. In addition to never having to teach he had always ether learned through trial and error or with his vampire abilities simply done what came naturally.

"Well get to it. Just slide a magazine in the handle, release the safety, point at the target and pull the trigger." Ranma walked over to the counter and slid in the magazine and spent a minute looking for the safety. "It's the lever on the side." Supplied Alucard after sensing his uncertainty. Ranma released the safety took aim with the gun in his right hand, fired, and abruptly found himself on his back.

"Oh yes, and brace yourself." Alucard said smiling widely.

"Ya know ya could have told me that before hand." Ranma muttered as he got back up and tried again but while exerting a bit of his strength to hold himself steady. This time he was able to hit the target near the middle and Alucard once again offered a bit of advice. "Only aim for the heart. That is the weakest part of vampires and there ghouls."

"Wait a minute. Ghouls? Like ghosts?"

"No, they are the impure victims of the vampires who feed on the flesh of the living. They are nothing to worry about, they are mindless and easy to kill." Alucard sensed his apprehension toward killing and continued. "It's best to kill them quickly and minimize their pain, they can't be returned to human form and they don't desire to be ghouls."

Ranma was still reluctant to kill them but if he needed to do it to save people he would do what he could. He nodded to Alucard. Alucard motioned him to get back to practice which he did. Alucard couldn't wait until this practice was finally over, he didn't give Ranma a second life just to teach him things, as soon as he was done the real fun could begin.

-----

Ranma trudged into the bathroom as morning quickly approached. He had spent hours using his new Desert Eagle, learning how to keep it in top condition, and learning the different types of ammunition it used. Walter was the one who had instructed him in the last two and gave him a holster and some silver ammo and told him to always keep it on him while Alucard had gone off somewhere. After which he and Alucard had their packets of blood and Alucard had suggested that he take proper care of his fangs even though he was dead and given him a new brush and tube of toothpaste. So now he was headed to brush his fangs before heading of to sleep.

He walked into the bathroom past several men in Hellsing uniforms who watched him curiously as he passed. It bothered him a bit about how much people had been staring at him. After they had come back from a mission that night everyone he encountered had stared at him and kept their distance. When he had asked Alucard he had been told that Integral had made his new condition known to everyone so nobody would become surprised and try to kill him.

After reaching the sink he prepared his brush and didn't notice the ceiling above him darken suddenly and a pair of eyes appeared in the darkness. Ranma brought the brush to his mouth idly noting the sent as he started to brush his teeth. It took about two seconds after he placed the scent before he felt a strange tingle and placed the scent…garlic. The tingling sensation quickly turned to a burning causing Ranma to scream out in pain as the garlic ate away at his gums.

The scene in the bathroom quickly became one of chaos as Ranma while madly running around the room screaming in pain and frothing at the mouth due to the garlic bubbling on contact with him and Alucard who was now sticking out of the ceiling upside-down laughing his head off in a tone that caused everyone who heard it to shiver in fear quickly caused a panic among the unarmed men in the bathroom.

Despite the fact he would never hear the end of this from his master Alucard couldn't help but feel it was worth it. The first prank on his student and he even managed to cause a panic among the humans. He looked back down at his student who was busy ripping a sink off the wall in his desperation to rinse his mouth out. He had definitely made the right choice to get a student he knew, or at least guessed, would be able to live through his pranks.

-----

Two days later Ranma had finally re-grown his gums and fangs, his healing slowed due to the injury coming from garlic, and Alucard was allowed to have blood again. Alucard's punishment had been fasting until Ranma was healed. Ranma hadn't seen Alucard since he had tried to attack him, only to end up smashing a rather large hole in the wall, which had earned him a long scolding about learning to control his strength from Integral. So now he was receiving coaching on his abilities from Alucard telepathically.

Currently he was working on phasing through solid objects in one of the corridors of the mansion, which Ranma had taken a sudden interest in. #It's not hard, just walk through the wall.# said Alucard growing more annoyed that it was so hard to describe the process of using his abilities to the new vampire.

Ranma was growing annoyed too, even his pop taught techniques better than Alucard. #I tried that, there has to be something else to it than that.#

#Just try it again.#

#Fine# Ranma sighed as he pushed on the wall in front of him slightly. Alucard watched with his extra senses and could see Ranma simply couldn't understand how to uses his powers yet, he had the power to do something simple like this but he had yet to be able to access it. While watching with his extra senses he saw something down at the end of the hall and couldn't help but smirk, it was perfect.

#Well now I see the problem. I want you to run at the wall at the end of the corridor while doing exactly what you just did.# Alucard said having to stifle a laugh as Ranma prepared to sprint down the hall.

Ranma took off and one explosion of a rock wall later found himself in a white room he hadn't been in before. Survey the room he was surprised to see Integral lying in a bath looking at him with surprise clearly showing on her face. Ranma expecting the worst quickly tried to talk his way out of the situation. "This isn't what you think! I didn't mean…" he was suddenly cut off as integral yelled for assistance.

"WALTER!"

Walter quickly entered through the door to Integral's quarters with a towel in his hands. Upon seeing Ranma and, the large hole in the wall, and rubble littering the room he quickly gave the towel to integral and stepped in between her and Ranma. "Don't worry sir I'll take care of the problem quickly." He said as he pulled several pieces of razor sharp wire from his pocket.

Ranma began to nervously edge away at the sight of the wires. When Walter flicked the wires he only dodged them by inches. After that Ranma decided it would be best to make a run for it and took off down the corridor he had just come from. Walter quickly followed after him, running at his top speed and throwing his wires at a franticly dodging Ranma's back.

For Alucard seeing Ranma bowling over the officers who had come to investigate the noise while running away from Walter's cables, and Integral who had now recovered her pistol and was trying to pick him off from the distance was too much and he fell from where he had been hidden near the ceiling and rolled on the floor in laughter.

-----

Fifteen days had gone by and Integral still wasn't talking to Ranma, he was better of than Alucard though. He was talking to Walter daily about vampires and what abilities and weaknesses he should have but other than that he was left to practice by himself. The current state of affairs was for anyone who saw Alucard to shoot on sight, she knew it wouldn't kill him but it hurt at least. So far though nobody had seen him, he went on missions when commanded but he stayed hidden even while exterminating other vampires. He had however caused continuous trouble to Walter and Integral since she issued the command to attack him.

Ranma had spent the first five days training by himself to become more used to his new speed and strength. His endurance, speed, and strength had all doubled and he wasn't sure how much faster and to what extent he could heal but he decided to not test the limits of that ability. After that he spent a majority of his time trying to use some vampiric abilities or becoming a better marksman.

He had learned something else interesting too, while doing centering exercises he noticed a different feeling and when he had kept the exercises up he noticed something different about his energies. After several days of experiments he found that with only a little concentration he could easily make his inner energies do exactly what he wanted. For the last five days he had been trying to accurately use his newfound power but at the moment only figured out how to sense other people, though Alucard stayed hidden even from his new senses, and how to send thoughts to people, which had severely scared several people until he realized what he was doing.

Currently he was trying to work on going through a wall again. Taking hold of his power he pushed towards the wall. #Your still doing it wrong.# came Alucard's voice in his head.

#Oh? Should I run at this wall too?# Ranma snapped at the voice in his head.

Alucard, having had inspiration yet again, ignored his comment. #Shape it to your body and get a good hold on it then push it into the wall as you walk into it.#

Not seeing what harm that could do Ranma took a moment to mould his energy to him before walking into the wall while holding it. It moved easily as he willed it and he was very familiar with the form of his body due to his training. Surprised he found himself sliding into the stone in front of him. #Hey I did it!#

#Good. My Master wanted to talk to you once you learned to use your abilities. As long as you stay in the wall you can move yourself by moving your energy while holding its shape.#

Ranma did as he was instructed after spreading out his new sense to see if he actually moved, while in the wall his other senses were worthless. He found that Alucard had actually been telling the truth and quickly set off up through the walls of the palace towards integrals study from his room in the basement.

Stepping out of the wall he let his hold over his energy fade and found himself standing just to the left of double doors into the room. "Ya wanted to see me sir?" he asked the woman at the large desk on the other side of the room. Integral looked up and stared at Ranma in shock for a moment before a shadow fell across the ceiling above her and Alucard's voice shook her out of it.

"Master! I'm shocked you would think such things about a vampire!" Integral instantly yanked her gaze away from Ranma and stared at the papers on her desk blushing.

Ranma, wondering what could have caused that reaction, looked down at himself to the problem. He might have gone through the walls fine but his clothing hadn't gone along for the ride. "Yipe!" he quickly covered himself in his energy and hopped back into the wall behind him. The last thing he saw before being completely in the wall was Integral in the process of unloading a magazine of silver bullets up into the madly laughing puddle of darkness over her head.

-----

#WAKE UP!# yelled Alucard in Ranma's mind, causing him to bolt upright in bed. Just before he hit his head on the hood of the bed he shaped his vampiric energy over himself and passed through it instead. It had been ten days since the last incident and every day Ranma was awakened the same way.

#That ain't gonna work again.# Ranma told the elder vampire. It might have worked the first five times but he had finally gotten quick enough at shaping his powers that he could avoid getting hurt.

Ranma pulled himself the rest of the way through the hood, clothes and all, and hovered up to the ceiling, where he phased into the stone and followed it to the roof. He had been meeting with Alucard there for real training. ten days ago both he and Alucard had received a long and boring lecture from Integral about getting Ranma ready enough that he would be helpful. So since then Alucard had temporarily stopped playing his more disastrous pranks to actually show Ranma some of his capabilities.

Now that Ranma could sense things he was unable to before he was able to learn simply by watching Alucard if he didn't hide himself. So far they had gone over every ability Alucard thought Ranma would ever need to know multiple times and Ranma had memorized the different uses of energy needed for them, he was still to weak to do most of them but now he knew how.

#So wadda we doin tonight?# Ranma asked as he came out of the roof of the building.

"Tonight you have your first mission." Said Alucard aloud as Ranma walked over towards him. "Walter says he will have a gun more suited for you ready soon, but for now just use your Desert Eagle. The target is east of here, I'll tell you directions as you go."

"Huh? You mean I'm going alone?" that caught Ranma off guard he had come to accept the need to kill somewhat more since he had arrived, being undead tends to screw with ones view of death, but he was almost positive Alucard was sending him alone so he would have to kill.

"Yes, and I suggest you hurry while there are living still living around him."

Ranma took what he said to heart and immediately took off to the east, jumping off the roof over the walls and onto the street and started running at his top speed toward his destination.

-----

Ranma walked up to the doors of the small church while looking it over with his vampiric sight. He saw one human, one vampire, and several dozen things he had never felt before. #Those are ghouls.# Alucard informed him telepathically.

Steeling himself for the upcoming conflict Ranma kicked the doors of the church, not knocking them open but knocking them off their hinges. Inside he saw a man in a preacher's suit holding a woman in a Special Forces uniform, he didn't see the ghouls anywhere but he knew they were hiding behind the rows of benches that filled the church. The sudden inward explosion of the doors instantly drew the two occupants' attention. "Who are you?" yelled the man who Ranma could tell was the vampire even without his abilities.

"I'm Ranma, Ranma Saotome. Of Hellsing Institution's trash cleaning division. Now let her go." Ranma said.

"Thrash you say? Hah! Hellsing institution! Are you serious?" the man asked with a voice full of contempt.

"Fine I'll just show ya." Ranma said while walking up the isle while cracking the knuckles of one fist.

"Heh. That has earned you your death." The man smirked before hissing, signaling his ghouls to rise. At least three dozen zombie like ghouls rose from their hiding places and leveled their guns at Ranma.

Ranma stopped in his tracks; he hadn't expected them to all have guns. Alucard noticing his apprehension took the chance to taunt him. #Hah, are you afraid of a bunch of ghouls?#

"Captain!" the captive girl said upon seeing one of the ghouls. Ranma was too busy talking with Alucard to notice and the other vampire simply didn't care.

Ranma recovered from his momentary surprise and he unconsciously smiled like he always did before a battle. #Heh, I ain't afraid of nothin'.#

"Kill him!" the vampire in priest's clothing ordered his ghouls. All the ghouls upon hearing his command let loose a volley of bullets directed at Ranma. Ranma however had jumped back the second the priest spoken and pulled out his gun, returning fire at the ghouls and taking out two with direct shots to the heart quickly.

As the ghouls all reloaded their weapons at the same time Ranma picked off another four before having to dodge another wave of bullets, easy really considering the co-odination walking corpses have, while reloading and using exploding bullets this time. When the ghouls all stopped to reload again Ranma took out six more before going back on the defensive and changing magazines again, this time using one full of explosive bullets. The next pause in gunfire from the ghouls allowed Ranma to take down eleven of them, almost every bullet hitting two of them. With only three ghouls left Ranma didn't even wait for a pause in the next attack, immediately changing magazines he eliminated them with two exploding bullets.

Ranma turned back to the stunned vampire and turned his gun on him. The vampire in question pulled the woman in front of him up like a shield and pulled the gun from her hand. Aiming at Ranma with the gun he said "she is the only survivor, a dog of a human like you can't shoot!"

Ranma stood there for a moment trying to decide how to best end this quickly, he only had four bullets left; he made a mental note to bring more ammo next time. While he was thinking it over his opponent saw him freeze for a moment and took full advantage of it, shooting him right in the head. Ranma fell backward momentarily overtaken by the pain. After concentrating for a second he pulled his wound back together, the pain totally gone, and stood back up, letting the bullet pass out of the back of his head as he stood.

"Not a human." Muttered the woman as she saw Ranma stand, sans bullet hole.

"What? You? You're a vampire like me? Then why?" asked the vampire desperately.

"I can't just sit around and watch while you kill people." Ranma said while shaping his power around himself. Slipping into the ground below his feet he quickly pushed his energy forward and twisted it, then pushing it up so he appeared a right behind the other vampire. Aiming his gun straight towards the others heart, pressing it against his back. He stopped not sure what to do if he fired then he would kill the girl too. "Let the girl go!"

The other man laughed at his request. "And allow you to shoot me? Hah!" then he redirected his gun at her head just to enforce his point that if he was shot his hostage would die.

Not having enough experience to know what to do in a situation like this he asked Alucard. #What should I do? The girl will die if I shoot him!#

#Kill them both.# said Alucard without any caring.

#I can't do that!# Ranma yelled at his teacher.

#Then give her a choice, death or being turned. He will kill her anyway. Just make sure you don't hit her heart if you plan on turning her.# said Alucard with a smirk which Ranma knew was on his face without being able to see it. Ranma knew exactly why he liked the idea too; two new vampires that fast would probably cause Integral to have a fit. Actually for that reason he was finding himself slightly liking the idea too. Many of the abilities Alucard had shown him were used to play tricks on people as examples and he had to admit that when they weren't maiming people a lot of his pranks were funny so he was beginning to appreciate his sense of humor, especially the annoy Integral part.

Ranma contemplated his other options for a moment; he couldn't come up with anything he could do. He strained his power momentarily trying to do tricks he knew he was too weak to do. Sighing Ranma directed his thoughts toward the captive girl #I'm sorry can't save you. I have to shoot him and you will be shot too. Do you want to die or would you like to come with me? The choice is up to you. Do you want to come with me?#

Ranma read the captive woman's mind and waited for an answer. He was surprised by what she was thinking, she actually didn't blame him for this, she was actually willing to die to avenge her friends and keep others from dying. A moment before she answered he knew what she was about to say and moved his gun so he would miss her heart.

"Yes." She said as she closed her eyes and prepared for the bullet.

The vampire holding the girl only had a moment to look down at her, wondering what she was responding to, before he felt an unearthly pain surge through his body which quickly turned to ash. The woman fell forwards as her captor disappeared only to be caught by Ranma before she hit the ground. He turned her over in his arms so she was right-side up. She looked up into his red eyes as he held her. "Ranma." she said softly.

"You made a good choice." Ranma reassured her. "I'm sure your friends would thank you for this." She smiled slightly as she lay in his arms. He brought his head down and gathered his energy. As he bit into the soft skin of her neck he exchanged some of his blood for some of hers.

-----

Ranma walked back to the waiting Hellsing roadblock he had seen from a distance. In his arms he held the girl he had just turned. He had read more of her memories and now knew her name to be Celas. Currently she was wrapped in a blanket he had found in the church. As he grew closer he saw Integral standing next to a madly grinning Alucard.

As Ranma stopped in front of them Integral spoke. "You took too long on a single target." Looking at Celas she spoke again before turning and starting to walk away. "I'll have an ambulance brought in."

Ranma nervously decided to break the news to her now. "Um…that's not really necessary. She's kinda already dead."

Integral turned her eyes back up to him, shooting him a hard glare. "You have a reason for this I suppose."

"I couldn't just let her die so I gave her a choice, and she chose this." As he said that Celas nodded once to Integral that it was true.

Integral glared at him a moment longer "She is your responsibility then Ranma." she walked back towards the chopper that had flown her in that was at the rear of the blockade. "Hellsing Institution will now withdraw!"

AN: well that's it for chapter 1. C&C are welcome at This is my fourth idea, I had it running around for a couple of weeks and it refused to die so I wrote it out, well it was also in part because just couldn't stand the lack of Ranma/Hellsing stories, or even pure Hellsing stories, I've seen one other cross of them but it wasn't very good. I'm not sure if I will continue this, it mainly depends on how many people say they want me to.

If you're wondering how Ranma got turned by a male vampire…Um he just did. I watched fan subbed of the anime before writing this and it did not say anything about the whole only females can turn males into vampires thing. Also even in the manga and Hellsing Ultimate it mentions that virgins never become ghouls and that virgins of the opposite sex become vampires, never actually mentions virgins of the same sex as far as I can remember; probably they're just supposed to die but too bad, since I have already started this they get turned too.

If you think Alucard is totally OOC, severely injuring Ranma for fun and not treating him like a completely inferior person, well this is just the way I think he would act if he had another vampire around who could take pain and who accepted their change pretty well. And as to Ranma accepting the change so fast, why not? He becomes more powerful, still is himself personality wise, his manhood isn't in question, and due to being at Hellsing he doesn't have to hurt people for blood. Oh and for him not being sent out right away, he had no training in any weaponry so they couldn't send him out like they did with Celas.

Also be forewarned I have watched Hellsing, am reading the manga as it releases in the states, and am watching Hellsing Ultimate as it fansubs and they don't all match quite right. So if your only familiar with one and something seems close but off it may be from one of those places, or maybe not. I'm not sticking with one of them specifically because it gives a lot better leeway to work from all three. Like Alucard has a better sense of humor in the manga and the first anime doesn't mention the only changing members of the opposite sex rule. Alucard's past I'm also going with the original anime version where its mostly left to the imagination.

As to where it will go, I would guess hanging around Hellsing for a little while before Genma manages to drag him to Japan, I have some ideas but usually I destroy them as fast as I come up with them. in fact my entire idea for RanMay was completely planned out after a long and tedious period of thought and then I went and changed it on page two of actually writing; he was just supposed to become a techie not have May. Oh well, it's a much nicer idea now anyway. 


	2. Release

Chaotic Evil Part 2. Release By the Jester of Doom

Disclaimer: no characters are mine; I cloned them without asking. All discrepancies between their usual behavior and what is shown here is simply the side effect of trusting Washu to clone something.

AN: telepathic conversation is in pound signs not quotation marks. #Like this.#

Ranma stared after the retreating trucks. After placing Celas into one of the medical vehicles, one of the ones for Hellsing staff only, Alucard had asked him to come to talk to him. "What is it Alucard?"

Alucard smiled at his young charge, not his usual smirk but an actual smile. Actually it had a worse effect on Ranma then the smirk, Alucard smiling was just plain creepy. "I have decided its time for your release Ranma."

"Huh? Release from what?" Ranma asked confused.

"All people when turned form a connection to the vampire who turned them. It is a way for us to control the new vampires until they are ready to walk the night under their own power. Tonight you showed you had what you needed to be a true No Life King. Besides that you will need to be free of the bond to me for your bond to the female officer to become truly effective."

"Oh, so what's this bond thingy exactly?"

"It is a link that will let you read your charges mind with ease even at great distance, let you know where they are, or let you force their compliance if you wish. It also makes them more loyal towards their master."

"Wait a minute; I tried to attack ya a couple of times after your pranks. How the heck is that loyal?" Ranma asked not really believing what he had said. He certainly didn't feel like he was being controlled.

"I haven't had the need to enforce it yet so your loyalty to me has only been that of a friend. You would have acted the same if we were simply friends and I did that."

"Well I guess that makes sense. So how do ya get rid of it?"

"As soon as a young vampire is strong enough they are offered their masters blood or sometimes fight them for it if they are held too long against their will, loyalty only goes so far after all. Now that you have proven you will drink blood of your own free will, can harness your powers, and are willing to kill when you need to you are ready to become a true vampire." He held out his arm to Ranma and pulled back his sleeve. "Drink." He said simply.

Ranma only took a moment to decide, he would rather be free than bound to Alucard even if he didn't notice any side effects and Alucard wouldn't be bothered by losing a little blood, he was even encouraging it. Taking hold of Alucard's arm he sunk his fangs into his flesh and gulped down a mouthful of his blood before releasing his arm. He didn't feel any different so he decided to ask what exactly had changed. "So is that it? I didn't feel nothin'."

Alucard pulled back his arm and took a moment to check Ranma over with his senses, he was still not a true vampire, even the bond between them was still there. "Strange, that didn't do anything. I had always heard that would release young vampires."

"Huh, ya mean ya never did this before? What about after you were turned?" Ranma asked.

"I was born a nosferatu; I never needed to be trained by anyone. Maybe I should have tried this with my first student."

Ranma was surprised at that, he hadn't seen or heard of another vampire at the Institute. "You have another student? I never saw him anywhere."

Alucard wasn't really paying attention to his question; he was too deep in thought about how he could have been wrong, his instincts as a No Life King had also told him that Ranma should have changed. Absently he answered. "That was centuries ago, the fool died before I was even captured by my master's family. He walked by a church and sneezed the second month after I turned him."

That had Ranma perplexed, how could sneezing kill an undead. Come to think of it though he hadn't sneezed once since he had died. Doubting he would like the response he decided to ask anyway. "How the heck could that kill him?"

Alucard smirked as he remembered exactly what had happened to his first student. "One of the priests who worked at the church said 'god bless you' and he was gone before he knew what happened. At least he gave the priest a heart attack when he died, it was the most useful thing he ever did."

That really got Ranma nervous. He made a mental note to NEVER sneeze in public, and to avoid priests if he could help it.

Deciding to get on with what he had called Ranma to him for he decided to skip the breaking of their bond for now, he would just read integrals mind or check one of her books later. "Well this is pointless for now, so let's move on to your bond with the female officer. There will be a knot of power linking the two of you, it should be quite clear if you search for it. Find it."

Ranma did as he was told; he tapped into his energy to help him find the knot easier then suddenly lost his grip on his power. A sudden pain flared up in his chest and he fell to the ground clutching at his heart and writhing in pain. He tried to scream in pain but his voice locked up in his throat. Before he knew it the pain overtook him and he was unconscious.

Alucard just watched Ranma with interest, it seemed the young vampire had to use their abilities after drinking their master's blood, must have been some kind of safeguard to keep them from being released to soon. After triggering the change all of Ranma's energy had suddenly grown in proportion and increased in density. Since a vampire's power is mainly situated in the heart the sudden power flux must have caused him to experience a pain along the lines of ten simultaneous heart attacks. Heh, it would have been fun to have used that on his first student.

After Ranma had gone limp Alucard picked him up and headed back to the institute. With the type of shock he had just gone through Alucard expected him to be out until the next night at the earliest.

-----

Ranma groggily sat up and by reflex alone phased through the cover above his bed. He looked over his surroundings and saw he was back in his room, he also noticed two packs of blood on the table. A sight he welcomed having not eaten the night before. Phasing the rest of the way out of his bed he walked to the table to eat.

After biting the top off and drinking the contents of the first pack he was still a little hungry so he decided quickly gulped down the second as well. Afterwards he was surprised to find he was just as hungry as if he hadn't had the second pack. It wasn't an extreme hunger just a slight desire for more blood. Deciding to ignore it for now he instead set about finding Alucard.

Grabbing hold of his energy he found it to be slightly thicker and that there was more of it. Not sure of why he figured he would just ask Alucard when he found him. He cast out his energy and found two other sources of vampiric energy, both still asleep. Deciding he would let Celas sleep he woke up Alucard in the way he was so fond of. #WAKE UP!#.

He couldn't help but smile as he sensed Alucard bolt up and suddenly stop as his head hit the hood of his bed. He had been waiting for the day he would get a chance to do that. #I was wondering how long it would be before that happened.#

#Yeah well it serves ya right. Whatever you did last night hurt like hell.#

#That was your own choice, and now at least your bond to me is gone. You'll be stronger now that you drank my blood.#

The mention of blood reminded Ranma of his hunger. #That reminds me I drank two packs of blood but it only felt like one, ya got any clue why?#

#The hunger will always be present; it just won't become bothersome unless you don't eat for days. The female officer has refused to eat yet by the way.#

#Huh? Why? She's got to be hungry after being turned right?#

#Read her mind if you want to know, just find your bond to her and focus a small amount of energy onto it like you were reading its mind.#

Ranma did as he was told and found the knot of energy in his heart. Concentrating on it he quickly skimmed her mind of what had happened since he left her on the truck at Cheders because he wasn't sure when she turned down the blood. In her room Celas' dreams abruptly changed

The ride in the truck was mostly uneventful she had been mostly left alone because she was already dead and none of the medics had anyone else to care for so they stayed in the front of the truck. She had gotten a strange feeling like a push on her mind that she didn't recognize but it had disappeared in a moment so she didn't dwell on it.

The truck came to a stop and she was told to go join the rest of the fighters. Celas climbed out of the truck in a new Hellsing uniform that they had given her. Looking around she saw a man with night vision goggles and a radio headset on waving her over to him. After a brief talk with the man she hurried over to one of the troop transports and grabbed a spare rifle. She then returned to the man she had talked to and he guided her to the roof of a nearby building. She set the gun up, minus the scope, and waited.

A ghoul came out of an ally on the street below and tried to attack a couple who were on the sidewalk opposite the building she was on. She fingered the trigger for a moment but was overcome with memories and couldn't force herself to shoot. Someone on a nearby building took the shot instead.

Ranma cursed as he finished watching what he had seen. He couldn't believe Integral had sent Celas out without knowing if she was ready. Even if she had been one of the people after the vampire priest guy she still should have training before combat. She might have been a vampire but she was still a girl. He would have to get back to the problem of not drinking blood too but first he needed to see Integral.

He tuned to look at Alucard who had come to Ranma's room while he watched Celas' memories. "I have to go talk to Integral Alucard. You mind getting back to this later?"

"Oh? And what's so urgent that you must suddenly talk to my master?" Alucard asked. He had not bothered to read Ranma's mind now that he didn't have the bond to him, without it he would have to slip a little power around the seal holding him and it seemed pointless to go through all that trouble, Celas was still an open book but it would take more power to read her mind as she grew in strength as well.

"She sent Celas into a fight. She could have gotten hurt, she's a girl after all."

Alucard remembered from reading Ranma's mind just how much he had been taught that girls were weak. "So you're going to go complain to her about it?" he asked. Ranma just nodded before walking into the wall of his room. Alucard's smirk grew to proportions that only he could manage. He followed Ranma not wanting to miss that particular exchange.

-----

"Sir!" Ranma said as he barged into Integral's office through the wall. Alucard walking out behind him.

"What is it Ranma?" Integral asked tiredly looking up from her paperwork.

"I wanna know why ya had Celas fighting with the rest of your troops last night. She could have gotten hurt."

"She was only acting as perimeter control for the scene and she has been trained as a member of the D-11. She was perfectly safe."

"That doesn't matter she still could of gotten hurt. Ya shouldn't send girls out to fight like that!"

"Are you implying that women are weak Ranma?" Integral asked in a dangerous tone that Ranma paid no attention too.

"Yeah... well but not you of course." Ranma had seen Integral when she used her gun, she could definitely take care of herself, and he definitely didn't want to get the lady with the silver bullets angry when he was in firing range. "Tomboys like you don't have any problem with fighting."

Alucard burst out into laughter at Ranma's statement. Integral was stunned that he would call her that "Tomboy?"

"Well ya do dress like a guy and people call you sir…"

Deciding to move on, in other words knowing he had a point, she asked her next question. "And what makes you think women are weak?" she said with a deadly tone.

"Well my pop always told me girls were weak so I should never fight with them." Ranma said simply.

"Well, your father was wrong." she said coldly. "For your information Celas has gone through training to become a member of D-11 which most men can not pass."

"Well yeah but…"

"No buts Mr. Saotome. Gender has nothing to do with weakness."

"Still…"

Integral cut him off again. "She will be a part of our operations whether you agree or not. She has had extensive training and will make a valuable addition. If you don't think she ready then you can train her, but she doesn't need all the time preparing we gave you in addition to her past training."

Ranma thought about what she said. She could have been right about girls not being weak; his pop was a big time liar in the first place. Having been through a village full of armed warrior women, and the fact that a large portion of them were stronger than most male fighters he met, didn't hurt his acceptance of what she said either. They were still way too weak for him to fight but potentially a girl with vampiric powers would be ok in a fight. And if she was just shooting from a long distance it wouldn't be too bad. Also he had also been planning on teaching Celas how to use her abilities anyway, he hadn't thought of teaching her to fight but if Integral was going to be stubborn, which she always seemed to be, he might as well teach her that too.

"Fine!" Ranma declared. Alucard looked a little sad that Ranma had given up on the point so easily; at least he had a new name for his master. "I was gonna teach her anyway. But she still ain't ready for a real fight; she doesn't even know how to heal herself!"

"She will go on the next mission." Integral said with a note of finality.

Ranma grumbled as he turned around and walked into the wall and headed back to the basement, he'd be able to keep her safe if he needed so I wasn't too bad and Integral wasn't the kind of person who changed her mind. Popping out of the wall in his room he went back to concentrating on the bond he and Celas shared; once again reviewing her memories of the previous night.

He quickly viewed that after laving the sortie she had returned back in a troop transport. Upon arrival Walter had taken her to the room next to his own. After a long period of just lying around she took a walk around the mansion, meeting Integral along the way. Then upon returning she found a packet of blood waiting on the table for her in a box of ice.

Ranma slowed his viewing of her memories so he could take in everything that occurred. As soon as she saw her meal she froze up in surprise, she knew vampires drank blood but she hadn't expected them to try to feed her it. She was brought back to the real world when she found herself unconsciously licking her lips. Realizing what she was doing she lashed out in anger and knocked the box containing the pack of blood aside, and off the table. Her anger quickly turned to panic; she began to fear for her humanity. She started to think she was becoming a monster, drinking others blood to live. She quickly covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

Ranma stopped watching, he always hated to see a girl cry, feeling her sadness and her crying was worse. It also didn't help him really to have seen that. He knew she thought drinking blood was something only a monster would do and he knew she was afraid of losing her humanity. He just had no clue why she would feel either of those things. He drank blood and he was just like when he was alive, well without the being dead… or having vampiric powers… or that he was starting to like Alucard's sense of humor a little… ok so he wasn't just like before, he shook his head to drive away the thoughts. He knew he was the same person he had been, drinking blood had nothing to do with it, he was sure it was just because he had been around Alucard.

Shrugging he decided to just go grab some blood and offer it to her himself. It was worth a try at least. He hovered into the ceiling and took the most direct route to the fridge containing the medical blood. When he dropped down in the store room Alucard was waiting for him already with a pack of blood. "Did you find the problem?" he asked.

"Yeah, for some reason she thinks she would be less human if she drank blood. I was just gonna go and give her some and tell her it didn't change me and it won't change her." Ranma said as he took the pack Alucard held out to him.

Alucard took on a more serious look than he normally held; he figured it was best to help Ranma with his new charge for now. Currently she was a bit too panicked to be fun and Ranma wasn't going to be much help settling her down at the moment. "Next time you might try looking into her thoughts more deeply. Since you are one of the first she met she thinks of you as a vampire not as a human. Telling her you were a person will just confuse her. And the reason she thinks it will make her a monster is that all her friends died when they were bitten."

"If you knew that why'd you make me read her mind?"

"You needed practice." Alucard responded while shrugging. "Now you should hurry she is awake." Ranma tried to look for anything in his advice that would get him in trouble but couldn't find anything bad about his reasoning so he took the blood packet and slipped back into the ceiling.

He popped back out of the top of Celas' room and landed just inside the door. He took stock of the room, everything was identical to his except for the naked girl staring at him and trying to cover herself. "Master!" Celas yelled indignantly.

"I… err… I didn't mean to… I uh. Here!" he panicked and threw the blood onto the table before turning and diving through the wall and into the hall. He landed flat on his face in the hall. Looking up he found himself face to foot with Alucard. "That wasn't funny!" he yelled.

"What wasn't?" he asked innocently.

Ranma got up. "You could have warned me she was changing!" he felt Alucard probe his mind for a moment before falling on his back roaring with laughter.

"That was hilarious, how can you say it wasn't funny?" he asked as soon as he stopped laughing. "How much energy did you force into her anyway?"

"What are you talking about?"

"She called you master. How much energy did you send through the bond earlier?"

"All I did was read her mind twice. It wasn't much energy."

Alucard took a moment to probe his memory again back until he had changed Celas and found he had barely used any energy on towards her. Not satisfied with his findings he skimmed through Celas' memories and backwards until he found a large burst of power soon after she had been set in the medical truck at Cheders, comparing how long afterwards it was he took a guess. "It seems when you were released the sudden increase of power gave her a bit of a jolt." He plainly saw concern become apparent on Ranma's face. "She'll be fine but more loyal than if you hadn't used any power on her."

"Now," he continued, "as much as I would love to see more of your pitiful attempts at interacting with women I think you already confused the female officer enough today. What do you say to sneaking away while Integral isn't looking and celebrating you're becoming a true No Life King and you're gaining your first student?"

Ranma smiled at the idea. "You know Integral will kill us if we leave."

Alucard's trademark sneer appeared in full. "My point exactly."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ranma said as he pressed into the wall and flew up inside it to the roof.

-----

Ranma and Alucard were seated at a table in a dark bar for their celebration. Ranma was slightly depressed he had been expecting a night of tricks not going out drinking, he didn't really approve of drinking due to the way it impaired peoples fighting skills. Both their drinks had just arrived, double portions of vodka. "This Ranma is the only drink that will work on us due to our unique metabolism." He pulled out packs of medical blood and added it to both of their drinks. Then using a small burst of energy stirred them both. "The 'Bloody Mary'." He took a sip of his drink. "Not as good as the original but good enough."

"What's the original?" Ranma couldn't help but ask.

"Find a young maiden and get her to drink vodka until she can't drink anymore and your drink is done." Ranma paled a bit, not that it was easy to tell, and Alucard chuckled before continuing. "Some of the more snobbish demand they are named Mary but blood-type is all that really matters. Personally I like A because it's salty. That's what this is. Try some."

Ranma took a small sip of the drink and almost instantly felt a pleasant warmth spread through him. Liking the feeling he took another sip.

-----

Alucard helped Ranma walk out of the bar after he had gotten so drunk he had fallen through his chair and confused everyone who knew they weren't drunk enough to be hallucinating. He mumbled something about kids nowadays having no alcohol tolerance as he stepped out of the building and a boy walked around a corner, right into him.

The bandana wearing boy quickly apologized "sorry I… RANMA!" he yelled upon seeing the drunken martial artist. "RANMA SAOTOME PREPARE TO DIE!" he jumped forwards to punch his nemesis in the face but was abruptly stopped as Alucard caught him in mid-air with one arm.

"You're about a month too late for that." the elder vampire joked. "You'd have a bit of trouble hitting him at the moment anyway. Perhaps you should try later. He'll be at Hellsing Institute." It was the truth that at the moment Ranma would be hard to hurt due to the fact he had cloaked himself in his energy instinctually so most attack would just pass right through him. He smirked a bit knowing that the childhood friend from Ranma's memories was now going to come to Hellsing to kill him; he would need to buy, or take, a camera for this. Having said that he threw Ryoga back several feet and started on his way.

"Get back here!" Ryoga yelled as he got to his feet. Alucard pulled Ranma into an alleyway. Ryoga ran into the alley to catch them but it was just an empty dead-end alley filled with shadows. Silently he cursed Ranma for getting him lost. Then he cursed him loudly just for good measure "RANMA SAOTOME I WILL KILL YOU AT HELLSING INSTITUTION…as soon as I find it."

-----

AN: that's it for chapter 2. All C&C is welcome at The Bloody Mary thing came from "The Afterlife Chronicles" by Meruru, which is a great fic and actually is probably the main reason I wrote this. I already got the go ahead to take it. Hopefully I won't take so long on the next chapter but it's been hard finding free time and another idea I had just wont die! I wrote it out a bit to make it stop but it just keeps rampaging through my brain so you might be seeing it soon. Sadly it's a pokemon SI with Ranma and vandread (maybe) added, luckily though I managed to kill an idea for FLCL/Ranma and Full Metal Panic/Ranma crosses cuz I already have enough stories.

Ryouga btw is probably in this going to be fluent in like every language on earth. After all with his directional sense he probably spends as much time in one country as any other so he'd probably pick stuff up all over the place.

To answer why I have the bond working like I do here it's because it seems like its just based on loyalty not an actual compulsion. Especially since it seems like Celas became loyal to Alucard very quickly after he started giving her commands. Also Celas does use Alucard's name at least once while bonded to him I think. 


	3. Dark Dreams

Chaotic Evil Part 3. Dark Dreams By the Jester of Doom

Disclaimer: None of the characters in this story are mine. All the character's are from the anime and manga forms of Ranma and Hellsing. Even my extras are extras stolen from the same worlds. I'm so uncreative…sigh.

AN: telepathic conversation is in pound signs not quotation marks. #Like this.#

Alucard peered out of his hiding spot in the hole of darkness in the shadows. He had gotten bored and was busy creating his own favorite soap-opera. Having been trapped in a room in the Hellsing basement his only real entertainment was watching the going-ons in the rest of the building, not even getting a chance to manipulate them, it was horrible! So now he was still catching up on all he fun he could have had. In truth though before he would have just slaughtered them all for fun. With all his years of contemplation however he had ALMOST developed a SLIGHT pity for SOME of them.

Now he wasn't "Evil" persay he simply had a higher standard of what was right and wrong, and he wasn't crazy just too intelligent for most people to understand; so far nobody would believe him when he told them that though. He just couldn't understand why the humans always confused the obvious with details; it's ok to have fun BUT not hurt people while doing it for instance. Well he'd never try to understand all their reasons anyway, unpredictability was the only reason he tolerated most of them anyway.

He had been working on this for days and was determined to see the fruits of his labor, not that it was much work for him. Sure some would find it hard to say… break into Integral's dreams for the third time in a row and give her a very nice recurring dream involving her, an examination table, Walter in a doctor's getup, and a cheesy dialog but he could do it in his sleep; he had in fact. Some might even find it harder to, just for instance, give Walter a sudden worry that Integral was becoming sick and a urge to ask to take her temperature and comment that she needs more protein. Now all of this was just an example of course, one he was kicking himself for not thinking of before he showed Ranma to detect mental tampering. This would be funny enough though, not that he had done it of course if anyone asks.

It had actually been several hours since Integral had awoken but as they say 'timing is everything'. He was at the moment monitoring both so he could find the best time to act. Then a bothersome call came to Integral and he had to subtly change her mind, he didn't want to be sent out and have his joke play through without him after all.

------

Ranma awoke feeling like he had a herd of the pink elephants he had seen the night before tap dancing in his head and a bonfire in his heart. In his current state he decided to just sleep for the night, one night of training wasn't worth getting up.

#WAKE UP!#

Ranma yelped in pain and bolted upright, by reflex he grabbed at his vampiric power but recoiled quickly in pain. Because he wasn't able to go through it his head slammed hard into the top of his coffin. Yelping again he cradled his head and waited for the pounding to stop. #You'll need to work on your tolerance.# Alucard chided loudly in Ranma's head. #You burnt all your energy while you were drunk.#

Ranma groaned as he hit the button to raise the hood of his bed. #Ugh… I'm never doing that again. Is there some way to get this ta stop?#

#You could swallow a clove of garlic.#

#How the hell would that help?#

#You would be in too much pain to care about your hangover anymore!# Alucard joked happily.

Ranma groaned as he pulled himself out of bed. #I shouldda known.# he got up and half-heartedly stretched. #What the hecks got you so happy anyway?#

#Just a joke maturing. Now don't you think you should answer the phone?#

#Huh? What-#

RRIINNGG Ranma shook his head and hoped he wasn't the target of whatever could get Alucard so happy he would use two jokes that corny. He picked up the phone before it got a chance to ring again, his head still hurt after all.

"Ah, hello?" he asked a bit unsure of who could have called, nobody had called him before.

Walter responded without a greeting. "You are to report to the courtyard to assist Squadron A immediately."

Ranma was left holding the phone for a minute after Walter had hung up to get what had just happened, then he rushed out the wall, or tried too. It's hard to go through rock unless you have a lot of speed behind you or have vampiric energy to use, at the moment he had neither. He lifted himself off the ground, cursed, and had to listen to Alucard chuckle in the back of his mind.

Opening the door and running down the hall, making a quick stop to pick up a pack of blood, breakfast was both the most important, and only, meal of the day for him after all, and heading up the stairs. On the ground floor a dull alarm was buzzing and a voice was calling for the Galice unit to get going. He just tried to ignore the sound and lights and stopped in a courtyard where armored transports were currently loading people. Seeing as how he couldn't become invisible at the moment and 'superhuman' stuff like roof-hopping had gotten him killed once already, he climbed into one of the transports with several men from the Galice unit.

He plopped down in the first open seat and tried to ignore everyone staring at him. A couple probably just thought it was strange for the 'civilian' (which he was still dressed like; no way he would wear a uniform!) to hop into the truck but most of the men knew about him no doubt, either from his description from integral telling everyone about the new vampire about a month ago, or more likely as the demon who broke his magical chains and tried to kill everyone in the bathroom. Whatever it was though he wouldn't let it bother him while he ate.

-----

Ranma sat and had to wonder why the hell he had even been called along on this stupid mission. So he made a mistake; that was no reason to have him stay in the truck. He wouldn't complain though, like this he didn't have to kill anyone, he just thought it was stupid to make such a big fuss about such a little mistake. The others went around eating where he could see it, of course that affected his moral, he had loved to eat before, but he didn't whine about it.

He sat back in his seat and tried to listen hard; he didn't want to waste the small level of power he had gotten from his meal already on his higher senses. All he could hear though was some gunfire, nothing to indicate who was winning at the moment. He was getting a bad feeling from the area though. He had been feeling it for the past several minutes.

He sat back a moment more to listen before he felt a sharp stabbing… not a pain but almost a warning shoot through him from his heart, from his bond with Celas to be more specific. He shivered involuntarily at the feeling and quickly stood. Whatever it had been it was something he felt he couldn't just outright ignore. Whatever it was he knew he had to go and help.

-----

Having phased into a hallway Ranma took quick stock of the area he had entered. What he really took note of was the giant blonde guy in a trench coat and glasses and holding two knives, that were each about as long as his arm. He ABSOLUTLY had to be the vampire they were here for; even without using extra senses he reeked of evil, he was the center of the same bad feeling he had been getting for the past few minutes.

"Master!" Celas called, shaking Ranma out of looking the guy over.

Ranma took notice of Celas for the first time, and more importantly saw she had knife through her throat, which matched those held by the blonde guy. "Celas!" he started to run over to her. "Are you ok!" He suddenly halted his attempt to help her as a knife shot out and caused him to either stop only a few feet after he had started or become a head shorter.

"Is it you? The monster that has been tamed by Hellsing for generations?" The man questioned while negligently flicking his blade at Ranma's neck.

Ranma stepped backwards to avoid the half-hearted attack. "HEY! Who're you calling a monster!"

Ranma was simply ignored. "Monsters like you have been punished by Iscariot Institution long before Hellsing can even imagine." He pulled his arms to his chest and seemingly prepared an attack, Ranma shifted slightly to a more defensive stance and was taken by total surprise when instead of an attack his opponent swung his arms and was surrounded by a vortex of spinning paper which was quickly followed by a wave of small knives. It wasn't surprising that his opponent attacked in a ridiculous way, they always did that after all, but he hadn't even needed to dodge.

"Ha! What kind of stupid attack was that! You didn't even come close to hittin' me!"

"Fool! I've purified this place so trash like you won't be able to use your worn out abilities." Alexander laughed in triumph.

Ranma guessed he meant his vampiric powers and tried to grab hold of some energy but it kept slipping from his grasp; he wasn't worried though, he was a martial artist first and foremost after all so he wouldn't have to use energy to dodge and his gun was the only way to finish an opponent anyway. "I don't need any abilities. I can beat ya anyway." To prove his point he unholstered his gun and took aim.

"Lose to a decadent blood sucker that fights with weapons made with humans? HA!" Alexander mocked bitterly.

Ranma's pride got the better of him and he placed his gun back in its holster. "I don't need weapons!"

Alexander simply sneered at him, it was like he wanted to be cleansed, then, not wanting let his opponent down with his seeming desire, charged in to stab Ranma's heart. Ranma spun to the side to avoid it and followed with a heel to the back of the head, causing his opponent to falter but recover to try a slice across Ranma's chest while turning. Ranma simply flipped back, bending under the attack, and let his foot catch his opponent in the chin. There was a sickening pop as his head bent father back then it should have, but he simply shuddered slightly and righted his head, sparing a moment to pop his neck.

"What the hell!" Ranma was positive he heard and felt his enemies neck break from that kick, that's not something you just shrug off; a voice in the back of his head yelled at him for being an idiot and expecting a broken neck to stop a vampire and told him not to go easy on him so he wouldn't be too hurt, killing was the goal here after all, and he deserved it big time after killing people and hurting Celas. Alexander offered no explanation and tried to use his opponents surprise to his advantage with another lunge. Ranma simply swatted the side of the blade with his left hand and punched Alexander in the chest with his right hard enough to send him flying into a wall. Several bones were clearly heard breaking before he slid down the wall to the floor. Not wanting to give him time to recover Ranma jumped onto him to hold him down and beat him senseless, there wasn't much else he could do without his gun but keep his opponent down and injured.

Ranma heard footsteps coming down the hallway and looked up to see Integral and Alucard before returning to the threat at hand. "You're right. They certainly need our help." Alucard taunted Integral while Ranma slammed Alexander into the floor and unleashed a flurry of punches. "If we hadn't come to their rescue Ranma's arms might have gotten tired."

Integral shot him a disapproving glare, as much as she hated the Iscariots she had already requested to have their agent immediately withdrawn and couldn't very well wait to deliver the summons just because her agent was winning at the moment, and killing their agent would be bad for their already stressed relations. "Ranma, you may let him go."

Ranma shot Integral a look like she was crazy but stopped hitting his opponent. "Are you crazy! He just killed one of your soldiers AND tried to kill Celas and me."

"The matter is out of our hands at the moment." Integral responded simply before turning to blonde man. "Knight of the Church, Paladin Alexander Anderson you have received an arch-bishop summons. Your mission was impossible to complete with the destruction of Andy Costabalili's body. You are to return to the Vatican immediately." Brandishing a sheet of paper she threw it towards the downed priest. It flipped once in the air and landed on his face, Ranma had a feeling the aim was assisted by Alucard.

Ranma stood up and moved to the side, still glaring at Anderson. Anderson didn't acknowledge his presence, in fact it took him a few seconds to even be able to lift the paper from his face and read it. Then he quietly got up and walked out past integral. "When the time comes, we'll finish this vampire."

Ranma shot him an angry look as he got to walk away without finishing the fight but decided not to press the matter, he might not like killing but some people did need to be stopped and besides, as a vampire your view of how bad death is can easily be distorted; instead he hurried over and carefully extracted the knife from Celas' throat. "Are you ok, Celas?"

"Y-Yes, Master." she answered seriously. She was feeling bit stupid that she had left the knife in her neck until he removed it, and being the center of his attention alone was enough to make her nervous at the moment. She was rapidly growing to like him, other than being alive he seemed like the kind of guy she had always liked; nice, strong, handsome, and with how nervous he was when he had walked into her room she knew he wasn't some macho jerk like most guys. She also wasn't aware of it but her bond to him was making her feelings towards him increase in power.

"I'll expect you to keep a better watch over Miss Victoria next time, Ranma." Integral commented. Meanwhile Alucard bent and tested the edge of the knife that still projected from the body of the Hellsing soldier nearby on his thumb. It was blessed; it would be good to know that if he ever fought Alexander.

"It's not my fault!" Ranma complained. "Your soldiers wouldn't let me help because it would be 'bad for moral' if I fought with them after they just saw me eating."

Alucard laughed slightly while Celas had a bit of a hard time in deciding if she were more sickened or hungry. Integral frowned a little, that problem hadn't come up before since Alucard worked alone. "Very well, but I expect you to refrain from eating in front of the others from now on. I'll expect you to do the same." she looked at both Celas and Alucard. After delivering the order she turned and left to go get a report of the encounter from one of the officers outside and to issue new commands. Alucard turned to follow along behind her; he needed to make sure he was there when Walter broached the issue of her health.

"Perhaps you should get the female officer a bite to eat." Alucard suggested quietly. "These knives were blessed, it would even be trouble for her while well fed to heal." he rummaged through his coat for a minute before pulling out a pack of blood which he threw back to Ranma over his shoulder before turning the corner and catching up with Integral.

Ranma looked at the blood pack for a minute then quickly glanced at Celas who had suddenly become very fidgety and was biting her lip with her fangs so hard she must have been drawing blood. He really didn't want to do anything that might make her start crying but even he could tell she was hungry and Alucard said she needed it to heal right. Maybe he could do it so she wouldn't cry... Nope that needed him to know why she was upset in the first place.

He was suddenly snapped out of his thoughts when he realized he was staring at Celas and she was looking back at him with some visible fear. He had been practically glaring at her and she was worried he might be mad at her; not only had she needed to be saved, she had gotten him in trouble too.  
Not being able to come up with a good solution and slightly afraid of Celas' fearful look Ranma just held the pack out to her and blurted out what he needed to as fast as his mouth would allow. "Drinkthisitwillhelpyouheal!"

Celas barely was able to make out his request, but him holding out the bag of blood made his meaning clear enough. She caught herself licking her lips as she looked at it and almost immediately rejected it, however she tried to make herself take the bag. She reached out to take it but her fingers refused to go farther than hovering an inch over its surface; she just couldn't accept being a vampire, visions of what had been done to her friends played through her mind and reinforced the fact that vampires were monsters. After a few seconds she dropped her arm in defeat, she just couldn't do it; and now she had let Ranma down for the third time today even though it sounded like he was just trying to help her.

Ranma began to worry that he had made a mistake as tears started to well up in Celas' eyes. "Wha-wha-What's wrong!" he asked in a bit of a panic.

Celas looked in Ranma's eyes and saw he was concerned for her and couldn't help but cry but managed to answer his question between sobs "I...I can't!...I feel...I feel like I won't be human anymore!... I don't want to be some evil monster!"

Ranma began to panic and wave his arms frantically while whipping his head from side to side in a search for a way to make this stop; a girl was crying and he had no idea how to help, this didn't have anything to do with fighting after all. He remembered Integral had said something though when he thought he had been turned into an evil demon maybe that would help "You're just a blood sucking demon, that doesn't make you evil!" Celas just started to cry harder after he said it though.

Ranma mentally kicked himself at whatever he just did. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Forget the blood! Whatever I did I didn't mean it!"

Celas watched as Ranma, a strong vampire in her eyes, was having a panic attack over her crying. she wiped her eyes and her crying slowed; in the back of her mind she started to realize how silly it was to be crying about becoming an uncaring evil vampire when someone who was more vampire than she could ever be was panicking and apologizing because she was crying. In truth she couldn't even think of another guy who was emotional enough to react like Ranma was. That realization stopped her tears and brought out the faint beginnings of a smile.

Ranma noticed the change in her attitude and slowly calmed down to 'prepare to run' instead of 'panic like there's a c-c-c-cat around'. "Um...I...er...Are you ok?" he asked nervously.

Celas wiped her eyes and smiled a little at his caring. "I-I'm alright, Master. I-I just didn't think I would be myself anymore...I'm sorry."

"It's alight, if you don't wanna drink it you don't have ta," Ranma reassured to prevent any further tears. He stood up and offered her a hand. "How 'bout we get back to Hellsing?"

Celas took his hand and stood up but didn't let go of his hand. "Alright, Master."

Ranma took little note of the fact his hand hadn't been released, he just figured if it helped make her comfortable it was fine, it wasn't like he couldn't beat anything in London with one arm being held by a cute girl. He led her outside and stopped. The rest of the Hellsing crew had left without them already. He sighed slightly; he didn't know that a clean up crew was on they way and he could catch a ride with them. They were stuck on the other side of town without a ride and would probably end up being shot at by Hellsing troops if he went roof hopping and was seen; even if they knew it was him Integral would probably let them attack him as punishment for "endangering the secrecy of Hellsing institution", so now they were stuck with walking back across the town. He sighed again; he might as well get started.

-----

Ranma came to a stop before entering the front doors to the Hellsing institute. "Hey, why don't we start your training tonight!" Ranma asked Celas brightly as he finally thought of a way to help get their minds off her problem. It had taken him the whole walk home but at least he came up with it.

"What? Training?" Celas asked in surprise. She had been distracted as thoughts of the night's previous events ran through her mind.  
"Sure, ya must've noticed you're stronger and faster and stuff. I figure we should get you used to that first; you probably don't need speed, strength, or endurance training. Later we'll do the harder stuff like going through walls and some martial arts."

"You know some martial arts, Master?" Why in the world would someone as strong as Ranma need martial arts? Well it did explain how he beat Alexander so easily.

"Heh, some? I'm the best there is! I've been practicing it my whole life. So you wanna start tonight?"

It only took Celas a second to make her decision. Spending time with Ranma was a plus. Having something, anything, to do besides practice at the shooting range was a plus. In fact she couldn't even think of a downside at the moment. "Ye…Yes. Thank you, Master."

"Great! Now what can we do for practice…" Training dummies might have been good, he'd have to look into getting some. Problem with training right at the moment was neither of them had any idea how strong she was, but he was pretty sure she would be able to break people's bones pretty easy, so sparring with others was out. He didn't have a problem telling how much his strength had increased because he understood how much force everything he did actually exerted. He knew how much damage every punch would do. She needed some kind of visual aid since she wouldn't be able to feel a difference. He looked around the Hellsing compound but mostly it was just lawn and big stone buildings. "I got it! Ok, Celas stand up next to the wall and jump up as high as ya can, then push off the wall with your arms as hard as ya can."

Celas nodded to show she understood before walking up to the wall of the mansion, she didn't understand how it would help but she would do it. She closed her eyes and thought about putting all her strength into her jump. She leapt and started to concentrate on putting all her strength into her push away, she opened her eyes as she felt herself reaching her max height and pushed away from the wall. She spun slightly backwards and off balance and quickly looked around to find something to grab onto or to know when she needed to catch herself. Unfortunately as she looked over her shoulder at the ground she noticed she was about the same height as the second floor's windows and was nowhere near the building anymore, and she was falling towards the ground back first. "GYAAAHHH!"

Ranma was impressed. He had just expected double strength of a normal girl, that was something most martial artists would have trouble with; not the good ones of course, just most of them. Determining that she wasn't going to land well he jumped from where he was standing and caught her before she hit the ground. She screamed again at the sudden contact but quickly realized she had been saved.

When Ranma landed and set her down she looked down, a bit ashamed at being helpless and failing to succeed. "Thank you for saving me."

Ranma totally didn't mind her failure, and completely missed her attitude. "No problem. I didn't even think you'd jump that high." Ranma thought about a good way for her to correct the fall, a back flip would work well; he might as well train her in balance and acrobatics if they were doing this anyway. "Next time after you push away try to lean back and spin your legs up like this." He jumped at the wall and pushed away with his arms, waited till he was halfway down his descending ark and lazily preformed a back flip to land standing.

Celas looked from Ranma to the wall apprehensively, sure he had made it look easy but she was really sure she wouldn't be able to do that; just the fact he had been able to match the height she had reached without trying hard was a big indication him thinking it was easy wasn't to be valued. She was pretty sure she'd break her neck if she tried. She couldn't help but realize the depressing truth that the threat of a broken neck shouldn't bother her.

Ranma managed to notice the look of apprehension that came over his student's face. "Don't worry about falling, I'll catch you." He was willing to train her but she WAS still a girl after all, so he didn't want to let her get hurt at all.

Celas gave him an appreciative nod and tried again. She jumped, pushed off, used way too much power to spin herself and found herself being caught after a dizzying number of back flips.

Ranma told her to try with only a small amount of force next time and to try again. Internally he couldn't help congratulating himself, this would train her to understand her strength and help her start learning control over it, plus she'd work on balance and learn to perform back flips. Yep, a couple hundred more of these tonight and she'd be ready to try something new for a while. 

-----

Ranma was slightly disappointed in Celas' workout, 437 seemed like a small number to quit after but in her defense she seemed to have learned enough of what he wanted her too. Also she probably fell asleep in the middle of her jump due to it being so close to morning, not lack of stamina, or maybe a bit of both. He was proud of how well she did and how willing she was to work at it though.

He sighed as he phased through the top of his bed, he had already decided that today he would work on her speed, coordination, and a simple kata to make sure she knew how to put power into attacks before she fell into any bad habits, problem was he knew he'd have to try to get her to eat again. He hated to see her cry but he REALLY didn't want her to have any problems because she didn't eat. He was kind of hoping she would ask sometime today on her own, just in case he wouldn't ask until the end of the day.

Luckily Alucard wasn't going to bother them for at least that night, he had said something about some dream editing joke Ranma didn't understand involving Integral had been so funny he was going to keep it going with a naughty schoolgirl and her teacher. Something about sucking a lollipop in class and deserving a spanking. Whatever he was talking about Ranma was just happy it would give him some peace for awhile.

Ranma checked his mental link and found Celas was still sleeping, so he went ahead and walked through the wall and into her room. Luckily he had regained enough energy over night to be able to use it for little things without worrying about running out.

Ranma walked over and knocked on the hood of his charge's bed. He heard a rustle and a yawn inside as Celas began to wake up and look for the button to raise the hood. She was surprised when she found him standing next to her bed waiting for her. "Master? What are you doing here?"

"Figured we could get an early start on training." Ranma said happily. Even if it did kind of cut into his training time it was fun to have a student, besides he had to learn to teach if he was ever going to run a dojo.

Celas almost groaned but caught herself before she did so. She was tired still and all that work had really worn her out and she was hungry. She caught her last thought and shivered, best to forget she had thought about that for now. Yawning again she got up. At least jumping around and realizing how strong she was had been a bit of a thrill. "Are we doing the same thing today?"

Ranma shook his head, "Speed practice and some basics for fighting." Speaking of that he remembered she'd probably need to change clothes. He didn't know what kind of idiot designed a uniform with a skirt that short for field work that may include running, jumping, and kicking. "You got any other clothes, anything with pants?"

Celas blushed, a hard trick for a vampire, when she finally noticed that with her uniform on last night she had given Ranma plenty of chances to peek up it. If only she had remembered! She felt so stupid! Thank god he had reminded her before they started training today! Hopefully he hadn't taken advantage of the chance yesterday, at least this was a good sign he didn't.

Celas nodded but kept her eyes looking away in embarrassment. She walked over to her dresser and pulled out some clothes then noticed him still standing there. "C-could you…um…leave?" she asked, she was still flustered and didn't want to look him in the eyes.

Ranma had been busy trying to figure out what he had said that had gotten her to blush like that when he realized he was still in the room and she was about to change. "Sorry!" he apologized and ran through the wall into the hallway.

After she finished dressing Celas came out to meet him in the hallway. He froze when he saw her. In her uniform she was pretty good looking, but in her current clothes, a pair of pale jeans, black hat and shirt that left her midriff showing, and a choker around her neck she was stunningly attractive. The outfit was perfect for a vampire, giving her a gothic semi-tomboyish look. "Master?" Ranma shook himself out of his trance, that outfit was really distracting.

"Oh yeah, um why don't we go up to the roof to practice. Gimme your hand." He held out his hand for her to take. She did so a bit reluctantly, not knowing why he wanted to hold her hand, but quickly discovered the answer when he walked into the rock wall and pulled her along. There were a few seconds, or perhaps minutes, there was no way to tell, where she became disorientated and lost all sensation except for holding his hand as they passed through the stones. Then the world came back into light as they rose out of the roof of the building. She suppressed a slight shiver, that had not been particularly fun.

Ranma let go of her hand and walked over to face her from a slight distance ahead. "Alright Celas, first lets do a few basic kata. Just watch me till ya think you've got it then try to copy me. And we're gonna go a bit faster every time." She nodded and studied his moves.

-----

Tonight's progress was better than Ranma had expected, seems Celas had had some prior training in fighting, not much though. At least she didn't need as much correcting to her attacks. He stopped the training as soon as he was pretty sure she wouldn't be breeding any bad habits and thought she had gotten used to the fastest she could go. "Alright Celas that was good. You can stop."

Celas promptly stopped her kata and slid down to sit on the ground. She was TIRED! She had expected it to get a bit better when she woke up more but it wasn't going away, just getting worse.

"Ready for what's up next?"

"Wha-what? More!" She couldn't believe it; if she hadn't been dead that workout would have killed her. How much more did she have to do!

"Ya just have ta hit me once then we'll be done for the night. Go!" he didn't wait for her to get up; he just started walking to the edge of the roof. When he got there he looked back and noticed she hadn't moved yet. Turning back forwards he jumped off the roof, kicked off the wall halfway down, and landed a good distance away from the building.

Celas hadn't quite understood why he said go and walked away but when she saw him jump off the roof she instantly raced to the edge to see if he was ok.

"If you don't hurry up you're never gonna catch me!" Ranma yelled up to her from the yard. Celas groaned; she had to catch him? That was going to be impossible. Still, she would rather try than give up; maybe he would let her stop before she actually caught him. Not really seeing a good way around it she leapt of the roof and hoped she wouldn't get hurt.

She landed a bit hard but quickly recovered. She briefly considered if she should actually try to hit Ranma, she really didn't want to but he was really strong, and a martial artist, and making her do this. Yep, she could hit him.

Hoping to get him before he could move, she sprinted at him as fast as she could. A good idea in theory but she didn't know how fast she could sprint so when he dodged she found herself halfway down the length of the compound before she could stop herself, leaving her incredibly surprised at just how fast everything had flown by.

"You'll never catch me if that's all ya got!" Ranma taunted, falling into the same state of mind he had when he tried this with his pop. Celas rose to the challenge and tried another pass, this time however he ran away from her facing backwards to continue his taunting. "Is that it! Maybe you should just give up?"

Angry at the insult, Celas poured on a bit more speed as she ran and tried launching some punches at the target that was keeping just out of her range. In response to the attempt Ranma just laughed and jumped over her head, starting in the opposite direction to make her learn to stop and change direction faster.

-----

The "game" went on until near morning, in retrospect Ranma realized he should have stopped an hour or two before. However he hadn't bothered to check Celas' condition with his new senses, physically Celas was still ready to run around for hours still and that was all he had been judging her stamina by. Mentally she was absolutely exhausted, she was clumsier and less coordinated than usual but Ranma just guessed she was having trouble adjusting to her new power.

He wouldn't have probably noticed till she lost consciousness, had he not bothered to make a quick check of her through their link when she tripped and fell in a way that would have broken most peoples' necks. Her body was fine, but her energy was really low, the workouts and lack of food had drained most of her power. She had less energy than he had after drinking; she wasn't in pain though, so he guessed it had been alcohol alone that had caused his headache. He couldn't believe how much she was trying to push herself though; the only person he knew that worked themselves to exhaustion was… himself actually. And the only reason he could feel from her as to why she was pushing herself was to not be weak and need saving again. He could understand that from a guy, or even a girl like Integral, but Celas had needed saving twice in less than a week, why should she be bothered by needing help again.

He put aside his thoughts when he saw her trying to get up and went to help. Instead of placing her on her feet he swept her up into his arms, training was done for the night after all and she didn't need more exertion. "Ya did real good, Celas. How bout we call it a night?"

Celas just responded with a tired smile. She felt too drained to talk. Now that Ranma was holding her she felt like just falling asleep in his arms. If it weren't for the fact her prevalent thought all night had been not to seem weak she probably would have. It was a struggle for her though, especially when he pulled her back trough the dark emptiness, leaving her seeing nothing and only feeling him. Luckily they quickly popped back out of the wall and he started putting her back onto her feet; causing her to wake up enough to stabilize herself.

The room was pitch black but Ranma could see it fine. Besides he'd been going in there every night for more than a month and was pretty sure he could navigate it with his eyes closed. As he walked over to the fridge that took up half of one of the walls he nervously glanced back over his shoulder at Celas. This could be a really bad idea, she could start crying again, but she really needed it. He pulled open the fridge's door and extracted two packs of blood. When he turned back towards her he could see her take on a more troubled look, he probably would have missed it but he was really looking for it. Deciding it would be best to try to understand her problem better he opened up the link between them to know what she was thinking.

Celas was hungry; she knew she needed to drink the blood. The ramifications still terrified her though. She knew she wasn't normal anymore, but she still couldn't help but feel it was crossing the line to being a monster to drink a person's blood. But then there was Ranma to consider, he drank blood but certainly wasn't a monster, mentally anyway. She wished she could think it over better but she could feel her thoughts being slowed and losing focus due to fatigue. She couldn't suppress images of her friends as ghouls due to another vampire coming back to haunt her. She wanted to help people not hurt them. Everything was mixing together and becoming harder to fully understand. She just wished she knew what to do, she wished someone could help her make the right choice.

Ranma didn't totally understand her thoughts but he did understand the helping people part well enough. This whole mind reading thing seemed kind of useless, she didn't think at all like he did. He bit off the top of the straw-like tube at the top of one pack and held it out to her. "Here, you'll need to eat if you wanna help save people."

It made sense to her, she was there to help people and so was Ranma, if she had to be less human to do it the sacrifice was worth it. Hopefully she could remain very human, like Ranma was. Her hunger stricken mind put up little defense to the idea as it had come from someone she trusted. She smiled a bit and reached out for the blood. She was too tired and overcome enough by the start of her meal she didn't even notice as Ranma picked her up and carried her to her bed.

-----

Several days later Alucard smiled evilly as he watched Ranma slip into unconsciousness an hour or so after Celas through his higher senses. His latest dream scheme with the teacher motif had come to fruitation earlier in the day so he had been looking for entertainment again. There was one possibility but that would take a day or two to make occur, he still didn't have anything for the immediate time being. That was until he had noticed just how much Celas' crush on Ranma had been elevated due to their link. It gave him so many new possibilities. He had been waiting to pull any major pranks on her due to her mental fragility; he didn't wish to kill a vampire he shared blood with after all. Luckily though about five days ago she had actually accepted her new life enough to drink blood. And over the following days actually seemed to gradually accept that despite her daily meals she wasn't becoming evil; that she was the same person she always was, just that her job required the blood to save lives. Even with the disgust that lingered the hunger from her workouts with Ranma had enough effect to keep her on the right track.

Now how to start playing with his new target? Ranma was too hard to effect mentally; he was just good for physical gags. She was still vulnerable though, so he should make use of that while he could. He should probably do something that falls into play all at once though, if it went on too long there were too many people who might tell her it was his doing. He also still had those dream ideas fresh in mind, something like that could work, yes, it could work very well indeed. All he would need would be to give the imaginative parts of Celas' brain a little jumpstart while she slept. 

-----

Celas awoke panting, the bed around her covered in sweat. She'd dreamt of Ranma. It was a VERY vivid dream; if she hadn't woken up just now she would have been positive it was real. It crossed her mind for a second that it might have been reality and waking up the dream, but something told her in the back of her mind that idea was stupid. It certainly was more intense that any dream she had ever had before. She couldn't help but blush just thinking about it.

She didn't know what time it was, there was no clock in her room, and without windows she didn't even know if it was night yet. This was the first time since starting her training with Ranma that he hadn't woken her. She might even be awake before he was. There was no way to tell though; she didn't even know where his room was since they never went there. Besides, she didn't think she could go see him after dreaming all those things about him.

She fumbled with the button to open the bed and get up when a worried thought came to her. What about her training? She definitely wouldn't be able to concentrate. Maybe she could say she was sick, but could the undead even be sick? Could she perhaps get a hold of him without having to see him?

#Isn't that why you humans invented telephones?# Came a voice in her mind.

"What!" she pun around in surprise to try to find the source of the voice. "Who said that?"

#Alucard of course! Who other than Ranma or I can use telepathy?#

"Huh?" she asked in surprise, Ranma had told her about Alucard and that he was the other resident bloodsucker, he never mentioned psychic communication though. "Telepathy?"

#Mental communication, I'm surprised Ranma hasn't used it with you yet. Anyway I'll go into his dreams to tell him you're not up to training today. And there's no need to worry about him thinking it's just a dream, it will be so real he'll almost confuse it with reality.# Alucard lied mentally.

Celas' heart stopped, or would have had it been beating, it sounded just like what she had experienced. "You can do that?"

#Easily, Ranma can too, why not have him show you some time. Now I better go tell him before he wakes up. Goodbye.# Alucard stopped his communication with her but continued to monitor her mind so he could provide a gentle nudge, the same type of gentle nudge given by a ten ton wrecking ball, if he needed to.

Ranma would never violate her privacy like that, she was positive of it, it had just been that he had been so real in the dream; she knew it couldn't have been nothing more than a dream. She was pretty sure Ranma was too good a person to do that though, he had even warned her about wearing her skirt to train, though with his abilities peeping would be a minor task to accomplish. Where had that thought come from? Oh, well where it came from isn't important; the task at hand is. Could it have been Ranma? Only he and Alucard had the power necessary, and it certainly wasn't Alucard in that dream. She couldn't believe he would do it, but something told her he must have. The asshole, she couldn't believe he would take advantage of her like that.

Ranma meanwhile was getting up, never having been warned by Alucard of course, and already coming over to get Celas so they could train. He phased through the wall into her room and found himself emerging right in front of her. "Hey you're already up." He said and smiled at seeing her. "Get a good night's sleep?"

In a distant corner of the castle Alucard was laughing his head off as Celas slapped Ranma so hard he flew across the room then promptly stormed out. It was amazing, and absolutely hilarious, how unlucky Ranma could actually be.

Ranma sat up and rubbed his cheek. "What the heck was that for?" he asked nobody in particular.

#She's mad you haven't asked her out yet.# Alucard explained in his mind.

#WHAT?#

#She's been waiting for you to ask her out. Now you've made her wait too long.#

#What? Why would she want me to ask her out?#

#Ranma I think it's about time you had "The Talk", since Genma was too much of an idiot to teach you. Why don't we go get drinks and further your education on humans.#

# "The Talk"? Whadda ya mean? And I already told you I don't ever wanna get drunk again.#

#Trust me Ranma, you will tonight.#

-----

Celas shifted a bit and had trouble getting staying asleep. She'd been worried ever since the night before that she had been to hard on Ranma, she didn't have any hard proof Ranma invaded her dreams at all. She shifted to get more comfortable and to put her head under her pillow, it smelled too much like alcohol and it was making it hard to keep from waking up. As she twisted her elbow ran into something soft.

There was a soft groan of "Oof". From beside her.

She was almost instantly awake; that definitely hadn't been right. She dug her arm into whatever was beside her again.

"Ugh, pop, cut it out I'm getting up ok?" Ranma said as he started to wake up.

Celas of course responded to the proof she needed that Ranma would in fact take advantage of her by hitting him away and cursing him for his actions. Ranma, without the reaction time or energy needed to phase through the side if the coffin was knocked through it the hard way. Celas, instead of staying to confront him for his actions, and ruin the end of the plan, instead left to go think how much she hated Ranma thanks to a "gentle" nudge to her thoughts. Ranma meanwhile was in a weak enough state that the whole affair was easily altered in his mind to be nothing more than a dream that he promptly forgot as he was placed back into his own bed and "lightly" encouraged to sleep.

-----

"Good day miss Victoria." Walter greeted Celas later that day when he found her exiting the firing range. "I just came to tell you I replaced your broken coffin."

Celas was surprised; she hadn't told anyone what had happened yet and didn't see how he knew it was broken. "H-Hello. Um thank you Walter. Sorry to cause you the trouble"

"It was no trouble at all. Did you have trouble getting the old one open for some reason?"

"N-Not exactly." She was a bit nervous about telling Walter what had actually happened, though she did need to talk to someone about it and Walter was one of the few people she felt close to here, of anyone he is who she would talk to if she told her problem to anyone. Her internal strife was quickly settled by the need for someone who cared about her to help. Walter listened to her entire confession of recent events and her feelings towards Ranma. And for an ex-Angel of Death Walter comforted her extremely well as she told him her problem.

Walter of course was able to figure out the truth of the matter quite easily. Ranma had not once acted perverted since he arrived that wasn't due to one of Alucard's tricks. Though, Alucard certainly did like making him appear to be a pervert. Also, though most didn't bother to notice, he had seen Ranma's clueless expression whenever he overheard any soldiers' dirty jokes. He had also been forced to listen to Alucard complain for an hour straight how badly Ranma had taken to being drunk and that nobody knew how to act when drunk like they did before he was captured, that and that there wasn't enough recreational killing in the modern world. Nothing he was accused of fit his personality. Besides, Alucard had supposedly been nice to her; he had to be up to something.

"Celas, I think you need to know something about Alucard. He has a very…strange idea of humor. He seems particularly fond of making other people seem perverted or getting them into trouble." Walter explained with fresh annoyance, just the other day he'd figuring out the general reason why Integral was avoiding him and blushing, just not the specifics.

Celas wiped away some tears from her eyes; she had cried a great deal once she finally opened up to someone. "So you don't think it was Ranma?"

"Most definitely. He's one of the most innocent people I've ever met. I doubt he would even understand your dream if you described it to him." He added the last part jokingly to help brighten her mood.

She brightened slightly at his joke and caught him in a hug. "Oh thank you, Walter."

The ex-Angel of death was surprised by the gesture but quickly recovered and patted her back reassuringly. "You're welcome, Celas."

-----

Alucard, unfortunately for him, was too busy preparing Ranma for his date and preparing for his final surprise to have been able to prevent the conversation between Celas and Walter. It had taken him half an hour to help Ranma get over his migraine from the night before, an hour to explain how to ask Celas out, another hour to explain that he was supposed to kiss her right away and why people liked kissing, and then two hours to get him a new outfit he was actually willing to wear. The last was largely because the first hour and a half of suggested clothes were BDSM outfits.

After Ranma finally snapped at Alucard to stop trying to make him look like a pervert the final new outfit Alucard settled for something that wasn't nearly what he had hoped for but at least he found it more befitting of a vampire than a Chinese shirt and baggy pants. Now he wore black silk slacks, blood red button up silk shirt, black tie, and a black jacket with red lining and a red and black ying-yang on the back. The lining and symbol on the coat had been white but Alucard had somehow dyed them blood red when Ranma wasn't looking. Then to complete the look they finished it off with a pair of red tinted black rimmed glasses.

Then with the final addition of a bouquet of black roses they were ready for him to finally ask her out.

-----

As Celas' door opened in response to his knock, Ranma was instantly surprised as the redhead grabbed him into a hug. Alucard, who was watching from his room, was equally surprised, he hoped for violence and hatred. And quickly set about finding what had changed in her mind, he cursed for a moment when he found it but the end of his plan could still work so not everything was a loss. Alucard would just have to bring it into play before they went out instead of after Ranma being attacked.

"Master! I'm so sorry about how I acted!" She threatened to break Ranma's back with her full strength hug. Luckily she let go after a few seconds and backed away, embarrassed by her outburst.

"It's…um... no problem. Alucard told me it was cuz you…ah just wanted me to ask you…er ask you out. So um…do you wanna? …um go out with me that is." Ranma tumbled through the question clumsily and then as an after thought held out the roses he had been carrying at his side for her.

Celas was surprised he would actually ask her out on a date, it was just so sudden. She didn't even registered the fact Alucard had suggested it. "I…I would love to." She was again surprised by his sudden change in behavior as he bent in to kiss her.

"AHEM!" both young vampires jumped back in surprise at the sudden outburst as Alucard made his presence known behind them. "Now now, making out like a couple of high school kids before your dates even begun, we can't have that. Besides you have to give a girl time to get ready, she'll need to go shopping and go to the salon. You had better give her a week just to be safe. Besides, Ranma, you have something to do right now and there's no time to waste."

"But…" Ranma began to protest but was cut off.

"No time to talk, Ranma, we're late." Alucard said as he grabbed Ranma by the arm and pulled him into a wall. Celas was left behind in her doorway with a million thoughts running through her head. Why couldn't Alucard have come along a few seconds later! She finally had a date with Ranma only one week away! Where was she going to find a good dress that was open at night? Damn Ranma looked good when he tried to! Maybe Alucard wasn't such a bad guy, giving her time to prepare and everything. Did that mean Ranma wasn't that good of a guy? Where did they just go to? Which came first the chicken or the egg? Damn Ranma looks good when he tries too!

Ranma was equally confused by where he was going as he was dragged through the walls of the mansion. #Didn't you say I was supposed to kiss her?# he asked in confusion.

#Of course, on the date! On the date you should kiss her right away, before you even say "hello". Tonight you were just asking her out.#

#Then why'd I get all dressed up and stuff?#

#That's for your practice date.# It was a good thing they were inside a wall when Alucard told him this or his wide smile would have warned Ranma to run for his life.

#MY WHAT!#

#Your practice date, you'll go out with a friend of mine tonight so we can make sure you won't make a total idiot out of yourself on Saturday. You don't want to ruin the date for Celas, do you?#

#No but…#

#Then you'll have to practice.#

#Fine, but I ain't gonna kiss her.# Ranma might not be the hardest person in the world to manipulate but he at least thought he knew how to cut a deal.

#Whatever you say but you'll need to practice with someone before your date. I suppose you could ask Integral to practice with you.#

Ranma blanched at the thought of asking Integral to help him like that, he'd be lucky to survive her refusal. #I… uh guess I could practice with your friend if she doesn't mind.#

#Of course she doesn't, pretend it's a real date and kiss her as soon as you see her.# Alucard pulled Ranma out of the wall behind him and onto the sidewalk surrounding the estate, they had traveled though the ground surround the mansion and come out the outer wall right next to the corner of the street. "Now wait right here. She'll be around the corner in a few seconds; you'll know her by her green hair." With that he faded into a mist to watch without being noticed.

Ranma fidgeted nervously for a minute straight before someone finally rounded the corner; with his nerves at their end from the wait he was moving to kiss the girl as soon as he saw her hair was green. The girl froze in surprise but Ranma was too nervous to notice as he locked lips with her and darted his tongue into her mouth like he was told to. After a few seconds he noticed she wasn't responding, Alucard said she would be responding with her own tongue, so he pulled back away from her. He noticed she was staring straight ahead, not focused on anything and was worried for a moment. "Are you ok?"

A small distance away Alucard took a picture to commemorate the event. Walter had a surprisingly nice camera. He'd have to keep it, maybe start up a scrap book of doom or something.

-----

Ryoga couldn't shake the feeling that no matter which way he went, Ranma was the other direction, but for some reason he kept going anyway. To make matters worse everyone he asked had either never heard of Hellsing Institution or wouldn't answer him when he asked. And as long as he was in the city the only places he seemed to consistently find to camp in were alleys. The muggers were annoying too. He'd make Ranma pay for putting him though the hell that was his life, and infinitely more important he'd make him pay for the curse he had received while trying to track him down.

About dusk he had felt the disturbing sensation of height loss when cold water hit him as a car drove though a puddle. Oh, Ranma would pay when he found him; he'd kill him with his own two hands. That had been hours ago.

Just now he was rounding a corner when out of nowhere someone kissed him. His first kiss and it came from some stranger he never even got a chance to look at, he didn't even know if it was a guy or girl. When the kiss ended he was still too stunned to remember to even breath.

"Are you ok?" The question was enough to remind Ryoga of the world around him and he gasped for breath.

He looked over the man who had kissed him. He was clearly Japanese and he looked really familiar, but the fangs, outfit and glasses didn't fit anyone he knew, the pigtail was really familiar though. "Ranma?" he asked in a surprised whisper when he noticed the pigtail.

"Yea?" Ranma asked, relieved that she was ok.

All of his hatred for Ranma came back to Ryoga like a tidal wave, all the trouble he went though to get to their battle only to be left behind, the living hell of being cursed to turn into a girl, and now stealing his first kiss. Red ki ran off the cursed boy in waves, brightening the night around him. There was only one suitable solution to his problem. "DIE!"

AN: BWAHAHAHA I'm cutting it there for the moment.

I know in the manga the seal thingy Alexander used was a barrier but in that he stuck it to all the doors and windows and whatnot. Anime version it was stuck to blank was mostly so I'm saying its different.

Also just because some of you may want to know I think Ranma probably did get "the talk" from someone before the manga started but I wouldn't be surprised if it came after his curse. Also in case anyone is wondering just how badly Alucard distorted "the talk" actually probably none, the truth would probably be enough…maybe the truth plus some vampiric ideas of how to go about it. 


	4. Trouble Arrives

Chaotic Evil Part 4. Trouble Arrives By the Jester of Doom 

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any Ranma or Hellsing characters. They were made by someone else. As such I deny any responsibility should they in any way injure you.

A.N. Japanese will be inside dashes -Like this- and telepathy will be #Like this# because ffnet is not letting me use any brackets or anything.

"What the hell!" Ranma yelled as he sidestepped a vertical attack with a bamboo umbrella that ripped up the sidewalk where he had been standing. He hadn't expected the small green-haired girl to be nearly that strong.

-I'LL KILL YOU!- Ryoga screamed and launched a series of five more vicious attacks at Ranma. His attacks were all easily dodged, rage made him easy to predict.

"What did I do!" Ranma leapt back from his enraged 'date'; he hoped it wasn't because he was THAT bad at kissing. Wait no, that couldn't be it. Probably something to do with Alucard. That tended to be a pretty safe bet, especially since he could hear the jerk laughing. He caught that he had been speaking English and repeated himself in Japanese.

-YOU MADE MY LIFE HELL!- Came his answer followed by the umbrella as it flew at him like a top. Ranma dodged it and it flew through the wall of the building across the street from Hellsing. This alerted several guards but Alucard 'encouraged' them to take a nap until the fight was over.

-YOU'RE THE REASON I'M CURSED!- This time his statement was accentuated by a dozen razor sharp bandanas. Ranma was forced to drop to the street and roll to avoid them all. As he started to stand back up he heard a fire hydrant burst and several light poles topple behind him.

-AND NOW YOU'VE STOLEN MY FIRST KISS!- The umbrella came back out another building's wall without seeming to have been impaired in its flight in the least. Ryoga started a charge and caught his weapon three strides from Ranma to launch a series of jabs that Ranma would have been hard pressed to dodge as a human. With his current speed however it was nothing too difficult.

-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!- Ranma demanded as he bent around his enemy's attacks. Then, to give himself some space, he delivered a hard openhanded blow to his assailants' stomach to drive her back. It just gave Ryoga room to launch another dozen headbands which Ranma once again had to drop to avoid and then spring back up quickly as the ground where his head had been depressed several feet when an umbrella struck it.

-SHUT UP AND DIE!- Ryoga yelled as he continued his assault. Even as he settled into a defensive stance again he was forced to the side by another toss of the umbrella then back as a pair of headbands almost took off his head. By this point Ranma himself was getting a bit angry he was used to being attacked and he would be willing to let a lot in the way of trying to kill him slide since he obviously didn't have much to worry about from some strange girl but trying to cut his head of was going a little far.

What to do about the situation was something he still wasn't sure on however. Training was one thing but he didn't want to fight a girl, especially not with the trouble that had gotten him into last time he tried, stupid amazons. The only other option really was to run. He didn't want to do something that cowardly, he was supposed to do whatever it took to keep a low profile though. His thoughts were interrupted as he dodged the return of Ryoga's umbrella after it crashed back out of another building.

Deciding that waiting and thinking about it only would only mean more destruction Ranma jumped onto the two story building his opponents umbrella had just decimated, grabbed what power he had regained from his earlier meal, and sank through the roof. Ryoga only took a minute to chase onto the top of the building but had already lost his opponent. Choosing randomly he set off to the north after Ranma.

Ranma sighed with relief as he heard the girl run and jump off the roof going the wrong way. He hadn't expected that to work nearly so well, most people probably would have looked for him a bit more. Not questioning his luck though he phased through the floor again to the first floor of the store and took in the carnage his opponents attacks had caused. He wasn't sure how bad most people would consider the damage but he would probably have to avoid Integral for a day or two if he wanted to keep his skin. Really this had to be Alucard's fault somehow; it just felt like something he would try to pull.

-----

"...seems mostly random. Unfortunately without witnesses, what could have destroyed the shops, part of the street, and left deep cuts through metal and stone is still unknown. Police say there is…" Genma paused in the process of stuffing the display portable TV into his shirt as he saw the news footage. It was obviously the signs of a fight. The buildings looked as though they had gotten in the way of a brawl between real martial artists and the street's potholes looked to be caused hard impacts. And unless someone very skilled was using a katana here in London those cuts almost had to have come from the neko-ken, not much else cuts that cleanly through metal.

Genma smiled as he turned off the TV and put it in his shirt. Now all he had to do is steal a newspaper to find out where exactly that fight had occurred and a ball of sting as a distraction. Soon he'd have his disobedient son back under his control.

-----

The next night found Ranma, back in his usual clothing, sitting and watching as Celas failed horribly at meditation. What he needed was to find the nearest cold waterfall. He really didn't get why Celas wasn't getting the hang of this like she did all her other exercises. Every few minutes though he would catch her glancing at him. He'd have given up on it by now but most of their other exercises would take them off the roof and that was the only place he was sure he wouldn't accidentally run into Integral. He had after all caused a bit more media attention than she approved of.

The intruder alarms that had gone off a minute ago also seemed to be causing Celas to loose her focus. "Um... Shouldn't we go help master?" Ranma looked up from his thoughts and saw she had finally given up on trying to pretend the alarms weren't there.

"Nah, I can tell it ain't a vampire. Probably just some idiot who thought he could rob the place. Probably didn't expect to find a hundred guys with guns. I almost feel sorry for the guy." As if on cue a fat bald man in a white gi frantically scrambled over the edge of the building and onto the roof. "On second thought I take that last part back."

Genma looked up at the voice of his son. -Where have you been! I've searched the whole city for you! My own son, my own flesh and blood abandons me. How did I ever have such an ungrateful child? You'll have double training for a year to make up for this!- A shout from below reminded Genma of why he had been so desperate to hide on the roof. --Now let's go. Move!-

Ranma just shook his head. -No way pop I've gotta stay here.-

Celas looked back and forth between Ranma and the newcomer; she had never heard her master speak Japanese before.

-There's no time for this boy! Now come with me!- Genma demanded as he grabbed Ranma's arm and tried to pull him away.

-No can do pop.- He allowed his arm to pass trough his fathers grip. -I'm stuck here now.- His father didn't want to waste time arguing and settled for knocking him out…or trying to anyway. Ranma simply allowed the swing to pass through his head before grabbing the arm and flipping his father onto the ground.

As Genma fell towards the ground the door to the roof opened and a dozen men in body armor and with weapons drawn burst out and took aim at the downed Saotome. Leaving him with no chance of running he was resigned to simply lie there and sweat while another person strode up onto the roof. Integral quickly surveyed the situation "I see you had no trouble detaining the trespasser. We'll take care of him from here." Walter moved forward to deal with the trespasser personally but stopped short.

"Um, about that," Ranma began. He scratched his head a little trying to figure out how to explain. "This is my pop…"

"Pop…" Celas said softly to herself in surprise.

"Ah Mr. Saotome, I've been informed of your rather extensive record. It seems you're not quite the master thief you have been made out to be."

Genma sweated a little, his reputation preceding him had never been a good thing. Well he could probably try to shy away from that little nuisance. "Thief? I simply came looking for my poor lost son, I'd feared he was dead!"

"Well founded fears…" Integral directed her gaze towards Ranma. "Ranma if you'll let him go I would like to talk to him in private before he tries to leave with you."

"Huh?" Ranma responded in surprise "How'd you know he'd want me to go?"

"Alucard has kept me well informed. You just stay here and continue what you were doing. I'll talk to you later. Mr. Saotome, please come with me." There was no window for discussion left as the guards with her quickly lifted Genma to his feet and led down the stairs. Integral quickly followed them.

"That was weird." Ranma said to himself. "Well let's get back to meditation I guess." Celas sighed knowing she'd never clear her mind now.

-----

Genma was sure of one thing…Integral Wingates Hellsing was a dangerous person. Somehow she had gotten hold of all his police records and also knew all the possible charges of child abuses he could be hit with from Ranma's childhood. Damn the boy for not knowing when to hold his tongue. Her demand seemed innocent enough though, let the boy live there indefinitely, and he of course would be put up as well; being made to live in a mansion was something he could definitely live with for a few months at least. Her story though was purely preposterous, something about the boy being a vampire; it was ludicrous. He played along to amuse her though, she was a dangerous person.

From what he could tell the boy was being trained to fight by an older "vampire", probably some clever martial artist who was just looking to get free room and board for life from some crazy rich chick who thought she was a knight. Learning a new style though was worth the wait, if Ranma still hadn't beaten this Alucard person yet his style must be good. He'd have to put a stop to Ranma learning to use guns though, real fighters didn't need weapons. Then there was the matter of taking on that girl he'd seen on the roof as a student….he'd need to put a stop to that. Add to that the fact the boy apparently slept all day now. How could so much have happened in so little of a time separated from the boy? He'd have to fix that all soon….well after living in luxury for a while anyway. For now though there was apparently a free cafeteria and there were bound to be good things to steal here.

-----

Alucard sighed and idly swirled his glass of blood. The memories he'd been skimming off the newest arrival were…well, interesting. But it was best to keep his mind off them; he wasn't supposed to kill humans anymore. Not until he got Integral's go ahead anyway; he undoubtedly could get it with his new knowledge. That would remove so many chances for mischief later though. Best to think of how to amuse himself for now.

Ryoga had temporarily disappeared. He would have to let the boy stew in his anger before he was brought back. His other plans were totally shot. He definitely didn't want to start getting a good reputation for setting up Celas with Ranma; it just wouldn't do. He had a little less than a week to find some way to split them up. Walter had figured out where his dreams were coming from. He certainly wouldn't tell Integral directly but she would undoubtedly gain the knowledge somehow. The fat man at least would be good for some old fashioned torment of mortals though. He really wished there was something around to kill. Ranma and Celas had been having all the fun in that department lately.

Yes, Ranma and Celas, how to deal with those two. Ranma did have several dozen fiancées; that could be useful if he found any. Celas had nothing to her history he could use. We'll nothing to help split them up anyway. He wished his 'master' weren't such a baby with his power usage or he could split them up in a heartbeat. Alucard sighed again; there wouldn't be any sport to it though if it didn't have rules. He really needed something to get him back in the game, anything to help keep those two too busy to get together.

A dozen more minutes elapsed in thought before a smirk crept across his face.

-----

A sleek black shape emerged from the castle like walls of Hellsing manor, four-legged and almost completely translucent. It was not one of Alucard's stronger forms; it was however the best he could produce without worrying about Integral knowing he had meddled with his seal. Now all he had to do was find someone, anyone, who bore Ranma or Genma malice. He sniffed the air for a moment and expanded his senses to detect surface thoughts around him. Giving a howl he set off in search of prey.

-----

Cologne's eyes shot open from her sleep. The chilling call she heard still echoed to the east. This was not good… night walkers would reek havoc in a city like London. She hoped they were not to blame for the disappearance of her new son-in-law. The lesser creatures of the night preyed on the weak, but the strong sought out powerful prey. However strong it was she would have to look into dealing with it soon, if not for the citizens here then at least for her granddaughter. She couldn't watch her all the time, and if her granddaughter were a widow she would not be able to return home without proof.

-----

"Walter?" Celas asked in surprise as the door to her room opened. Integral had called Ranma down to talk to him. As a result she had the rest of the night free and didn't have anything to do.

"Excuse me Celas…. I had assumed you would be training still." Walter had come to check that her room was still in order, and that her bed was still intact. "Well good night Celas." He turned to leave.

"Wait!" Walter stopped and looked back at the young vampire. "Do you….Do you know anything about Master's father?"

Walter cocked an eyebrow at that. "I've just met him today. Why do you ask?"

Celas shifted nervously. "Well it's just, he's not a vampire is he?" Ranma Had definitely called the intruder his "pop" but as far as she knew all vampires had certain traits, like their red eyes. The newcomer just looked like a normal person.

"No…no he's not," Was the simple reply.

"And his mother…?"

"Not that I've heard."

"So that means…"

"He was bitten?" Walter finished for her, seeing her hesitation. He would have expected this to have been told to her already. People were still talking about Ranma's appearance. Then again she didn't exactly have many people willing to talk to her. "Yes, that's the only way for a human to become a vampire."

The simple statement stirred up chaos in Celas' mind. Ranma had been a human, just like her. Before tonight she had thought she was alone in her predicament…. Not quite human but not quite vampire. This was great! She was next to the ex-angel of death in an instant and crushing him in a very happy, and extremely painful, hug. "Thank you Walter!" Tears were beginning to appear in her eyes; she wasn't as alone as she thought.

Walter just patted her on the shoulder. He didn't have anything he could say…. He didn't have any air left in his lungs.

-----

"Master!" Celas yelled as she finally got to the roof… finding the way up had been hard without just flying through the walls with Ranma's help.

Ranma turned his head in surprise and received a kick, courtesy of his father, to the face. -Concentrate boy! You're too lax in your studies!- Ranma managed to flip backwards with the blow and land back on his feet.

Ranma let himself loose substance so that he could talk to Celas without provoking attacks. "Huh? What's wrong Celas?" He asked dumbly while his father tried kicking him in the back of the head. She looked a little like she had been crying; he hoped he was wrong though.

Celas watched the odd sight of the old fat man's kick passing cleanly through her teachers head without impacting on anything. It was so weird to her that this person could have been normal like she had been. A little worry that Walter was wrong made her stumble slightly over her very hopeful question, "You…you were a human weren't you?"

Ranma jerked slightly at the unexpected question. A kick passed through his legs. This was something Alucard had specifically warned him about. "Well um I…" A flurry of punches through his face cut him off. "Damn it pop not right now!" Ranma let himself become solid again, grabbed his very surprised father, and threw him off the roof. As soon as his father was off the roof he figured out how Celas had guessed his heritage. He needed to learn to watch what he said. Sighing he decided to just fess up since the umm… animal was already out of the bag. "Yeah."

Ranma found himself the sudden recipient of a bear hug that would kill most mortals. "This is great!" Celas declared happily as hugged him.

"Re…really?" Came the surprised response as soon as he could draw breath.

"Of course!" She released him and looked at him in surprise. "Why didn't you tell me before!"

"Well Alucard kinda said it was a bad idea to let you know and all…"

Celas frowned at the comment. Alucard again. Why did he seem to try to make her life difficult? She'd have to talk to Ranma about this further.

-----

The next day Ranma was found again on the roof training with Celas. Dusk had just settled and it still was not late into the night. #Ranma, you'll want to come down here. We have a visitor at the gate. I'm sure you and Celas will want to meet her.# Ranma could literally feel Alucard's amusement through the telepathic summons as he was called from training with Celas. He signaled for Celas to stop her latest exercise.

"What's wrong?" Celas asked as she saw her teacher take on a much grimmer than usual appearance and signal for her to stop her latest kata.

"Alucard wants us both at the gate. He sounds way too happy tho." Ranma had been alright with a lot of the jokes played on him, though he was a little bit angry about a few of them. The soldiers Hellsing employed could basically take care of themselves. Integral and Walter were in no way people he needed to protect from Alucard. Picking on a girl like Celas though was not ok. She had made it abundantly clear she thought Alucard had it out for her. Sure she was stuttering and blushing too much to give most of the details but she was convinced he was trying to cause her trouble.

"Should we go?"

Ranma frowned; he would have to watch out for anything funny. "Yeah, guess we'd better get this over with." He reached out for Celas' hand so he could bring them down to the front of the building through the walls. After she took it he sank into the wall at the edge of the building and dragged her along with him. He turned on his higher senses so he could navigate and decided to take a peek at the entrance to the compound as well.

Besides the guards at the main gate of Hellsing the only people near the entrance were standing further into the compound. Well two of them were standing, Alucard and some woman, and there was a fat man lying on the ground, Ranma guessed it was his father since the Hellsing troops were all in shape. It looked like his father was getting the stuffing beaten out of him by the newcomer and not even trying to fight back.

As he and Celas emerged from the wall at the ground floor of the building he saw the situation better. The girl was Japanese, her black hair was tied behind her, and she wore a black Japanese cook's outfit. The fact she was beating Genma into the ground with a giant spatula earned a raised eyebrow and slight stumble from Celas but it wasn't too weird in Ranma's opinion. Ranma released Celas' hand and raised both his hands to his mouth to amplify his voice. "Hey pops if you wanted ta have someone smack you around ya coulda just asked me!"

"Shut up boy! If you know what's good for you you'll come and take what you deserve!" Genma answered from the ground, relived that his son was now there to be an outlet for righteous fury in his place.

The girl with the oversized cookware had her attention drawn from the old man before her and looked at the newcomers. "Ranma." She growled angrily.

Alucard, with a smile that would send anyone who knew him well running, took this as his cue. "I see you recognize him." He said to the girl with him before turning back to the now approaching forms of the younger vampires of Hellsing. "Ranma, this," he gestured grandly to the girl next to himself, "is your Fiancée, Ukyo Kuonji."

Ranma and Celas stumbled simultaneously in their advance as Alucard announced the new arrival. "WHAT?" Both yelled in shock.

The new revelation quickly sparked something in the teenage martial artist's memory however. In china, after Genma had dragged him away from that crazy Amazon village Ranma had been told he had been engaged to the daughter of one of Genma's old friends. He'd already told his father what he thought of that stupid idea however and the topic had not come up again since Ranma had beaten his old man into submission. Now that it was popping up to bite him in the ass his anger at his father quickly returned. -Damn it pops I already told you I'm not going to marry some stupid girl just cuz you tell me to!-

-Did you just call me stupid?- Ukyo asked raising her spatula angrily. Genma saw the rise in her temper and took to cowering some more.

-That's not the point!- Ranma responded -No way am I going to marry someone I've never even met!-

Ukyo gripped tighter onto her spatula, the jerk seemed to be trying to make her angry. -Just what the hell do you mean someone you've never met?-

-Jeez how can you not understand that? Are you actually stupid or something?-

As blows started heading for Ranma, Celas managed to overcome her shock at the announcement of Ranma's fiancée. She had been particularly slow on the uptake thanks to the announcement ruining her growing hope to be with Ranma. Celas however was nothing if not resilient, and slightly in shock. Hopefully the fact they were actually fighting meant this fiancée thing was a some kind of misunderstanding. When her mind managed to realize the fact in her last line of thought she'd rather have someone attack Ranma than be engaged to him she really began to wish none of this was happening. "What's going on?" she asked Alucard, her mind was acting a bit too chaotic to put things together correctly right then.

Alucard smirked at the trouble he was causing. He had no idea at all what was being said, it was not like he could speak Japanese. He'd have to ask Ranma to teach the new arrival English. The emotions gave enough clues to generalize; this is however no reason not to pretend to understand completely. "Shh, I want to listen to this; it's interesting." It had the result he desired as the police woman muttered something sounding like "I hate you" before turning her attention back to the fight.

Said fight had by this point just slightly moved past the insult phase and Ukyo still had yet to hit her quickly dodging opponent. Ukyo briefly paused in trying to attack her foe. -How the hell can you not remember your own fiancée?-

-I'm telling you I've never met you. I'd remember a crazy chick like you.-

Ukyo attacked once again in anger. -Damn it Ranchan I'm serious!-

Ranma caught the attack as the old nickname triggered Ranma's memories of the one person who called him Ranchan. -Ucchan?-

-Damn right it's me!- She yanked her spatula back out of Ranma's grip. -It's about damn time you recognized me!-

-Ucchan…- Ranma began dropping out of his ready stance and becoming completely serious, -you're a girl?-

Ukyo quickly slammed him into the dirt with her spatula. -What the hell did you think I was?-

Ranma pulled himself back to standing -How the heck was I supposed to know!- Ukyo took another angry swing at her target but the attack was dodged. -The fact we were ENGAGED should have been a clue!-

-Nobody told me we were engaged!-

Ukyo stopped, taken aback, in the middle of another attack. -You never knew?- She asked slightly in shock. Actual ignorance of the matter had never occurred to her before.

Ranma just shook his head.

-You really never knew?- A repeat of Ranma's answer followed. She had always thought he'd known. Granted she had imagined many scenarios, everything from Ranma evilly planning the whole thing to Ranma fighting his father to go back to her once he realized they had left her behind but she'd always thought he'd known they were engaged. If nothing else the fact they'd taken her dowry seemed like a confirmation of that. -Why did you think my father gave you our yatai?-

Ranma thought for a moment and remembered the cart. Come to think of it he had never thought of that. He slightly remembered eating all the food it contained and feeling sad when it was finally empty. This was during his early childhood however, a time when Genma had a habit of acquiring items without any clear means; mysteriously gaining a friend's source of food had seemed perfectly natural at the time. Ranma scratched the back of his head stupidly. -Come ta think of it why did we have that thing?-

Genma looked up from his place on the ground, best to pin the blame on Ranma for the theft before he himself was implicated. -Well you see…- he was however quickly silenced by a boot in his face. Alucard may not want to kill Genma quite yet but abuse was very fitting and interruptions to the soap opera he was watching weren't welcome. Alucard noticed the two young martial artists looking at him and the fat man holding his hands to his nose on the ground; not wanting to distract them any more he waved his hands to signal them to continue.

Ukyo looked back at Ranma, Genma getting kicked like that was weird but welcome, she had more important things to deal with right now than the old man. -That was my dowry you idiot! You really didn't know?-

-How the hell would I?- He responded slightly angry at having been called an idiot.

Ukyo almost started to insult him again for taking that tone with her but another line of thought made her loose steam. Ranma really hadn't abandoned her, so there still was a chance with him. She never really would have wanted to admit it, even to herself, but she always had cared for the jerk, even while tracking him down to get revenge. She had always hoped he'd show up one day after escaping from his father to say he'd come back for her. This wasn't the best of circumstances but it seemed like she at least had a shot at happiness if Ranma was telling the truth. -Alright,- Ukyo decided, -Ranchan we were friends so you get one more chance.- she surprised Ranma as her expression changed from anger to a small smile and stepped up to hug him. -Don't screw it up!-

-----

A.N. ok well I don't know if I handled the Ukyo stuff perfectly but I don't have my manga on me for the summer so if I fix it I will probably do so after the summer is over but for now I feel like writing so I don't want this to stop me. Also I do think she must have already wanted to stay with him a lot in the manga even before calling her cute or else she wouldn't suddenly go from wanting vengeance to blushing like a school girl. I figure with a combination of Ranma not seeming to have any fiancée besides her and stopping Genma from mentioning Ranma ditched her for food she may have enough to change her mind with just claims of innocence instead of calling her cute. Worst come to worst she could always hunt him down later.

Also surprise to everyone who thought I totally stopped writing. I'm working on the next one already by the way so it should not be an extremely long time before its out, dunno though.


	5. Curses

Chaotic Evil Part 5. Curses By the Jester of Doom

Disclaimer: I am not the creator of Ranma or Hellsing. I'm not even the real writer of this story, I mugged a hobo with a script so please direct all flames to the hobo buried in my backyard. Aside yes… yes… brilliant, now that damn hobo will take the fall for me misusing Ranma and Hellsing. BWAHAHA!... Oh, you're still here? Damn.

A.N. Japanese will be in dashes -Like this- due to FFnet formatting. Telepathic stuff is #Like so#

Ranma frowned from the roof as he watched the occasional soldier leave or enter the main building of Hellsing institute. His life, or death as it may be, was getting a bit too complicated for his liking right at the moment. The old days of fighting his father for food and always having to flee towns was what he had grown up with. The way things had been going recently had him just wanting to sit on the roof and look at the sky. It was a nice night out, the moon was full. It was the kind of night he felt like just relaxing and drinking blood.

As things were he was really starting to wish he could just relax a little more often. Before he came to London he'd had plenty of time to relax when his father went off to go do whatever stupidity he didn't want Ranma to know about. Things only changed after coming to London, that had been stupid but dumb training trips were par for the course in his life. Becoming a vampire was well… actually not half bad; a little change of diet and sleep cycles and bang, tons of new possible techniques to learn and massive benefits to his fighting capacity. Hellsing itself was a little annoying, he liked the whole "real permanent place to live" idea but most of the inhabitants weren't very friendly. Integral? Well she was fun to annoy but a way too bossy. Alucard? Not too bad, probably a step up from Genma, but still not good to be around for long periods; eventually he'd get bored and attempt to annoy anyone nearby. Now he was apparently bothering Celas too; that was going to be a problem. His time with Celas was fun at least; he hadn't realized teaching the Art was as amusing as it was. The arrival of his father and the discovery that he had a fiancée though were kind of pushing the extents of how much he wanted to deal with.

Ranma was happy Ukyo had shown up; the whole fiancée thing was weird but she had been his best friend so he could deal with some weirdness to hang out with her again. Genma was as always his annoying self, demanding Ranma train more and attempting to prove his superiority. When Ukyo had appeared last night he'd had to deal with his father trying to kidnap him and run away all night for some reason. Meanwhile Ukyo had a little debriefing from integral. Ranma had been there and by the looks of things she didn't believe the whole "Ranma is a vampire" thing but Ranma decided he didn't really care; she could think of him as a human if she wanted too, he had decided he would rather not loose his friend again. After the debriefing she'd decided to try catching back up with him until she finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning.

As for tonight, Ukyo was asleep again; she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Genma was off being a nuisance to someone else thankfully. Celas was resting after another mission, one for "vampires who don't keep attracting more attention" according to Integral; she really was not taking the appearance of another outsider looking for Ranma too well. The only people left who would interrupt his relaxation were Alucard and Integral, and Ranma could sense they were with some other guests. Yep, tonight was going to be a great night off, and there was no one to interrupt it. "RANMA!" Ranma looked down to his left, through several stone walls. Well it seemed Integral wasn't as busy with her guests as he had hoped.

-----

Cologne was taken aback by the response her true reason for coming had elicited from her host. She had not even been sure her son-in-law was present at the facility. The location was not very hard to find once she had an idea of what to look for. The whole damn place was like a magical beacon. It was in the center of a holy ward miles across. She had no idea who in their right minds could have thought such a thing was necessary or how they could have constructed it but it would not surprise her if it had the power to protect against a full-fledged god.

She had waited and followed a force earlier that night that had been dispatched to eliminate a vampire, using a tamed vampire no less. That shed some light on why such a strong seal was in place, though it seemed the one that existed could have controlled hundreds of vampires with its power. The earlier incident was what had led to the current meeting; a chance to offer aid and then ask about the missing addition to her family line.

Cologne, despite her hundred years of experience, actually fell from her chair when a pigtailed head popped out of the ceiling in the corner, "yeah wadda ya want…. Oh shit!" Only to disappear again right back up into the ceiling.

Cologne managed to compose herself and pull her body back up into her chair despite the multitude of thoughts this new revelation brought up. "He's been bitten?" her voice was quite a bit weaker than she would have hoped. 

Integral looked back from shaking her head in disgust from the spot which Ranma had fled from. "Unfortunately, yes. He is quite safe however."

"The seal?" cologne asked and received the questioning look she had expected. Had this not been a matter of great importance cologne would not have revealed her knowledge of the magical barrier so easily.

Integral shifter her glasses slightly and fixed the Amazon with a glare. "Yes, that bloodline is under our control."

"How many?" The use of the broad term worried her slightly; actually having hundreds of vampires contained here would make that barrier suddenly seem flimsy.

"Three, including Ranma."

The response earned a release of breath cologne had not realized she had been holding. So it was essentially safe at Hellsing. The seal in use could easily completely destroy three mere vampires. A place shampoo could be kept safely now seemed like a very important thing to have; so long as she could be kept away from Ranma. The village would not like news that her great-granddaughter was bequeathed to demon spawn. And she had a feeling the other Matriarchs of her tribe wouldn't be in the mood to re-write the laws of marriage just to allow Cologne's heir to give up on her husband and return honorably; her family had stepped on toes often enough that there would be little regret in stopping Cologne's family from remaining in power. Now she just needed to set up a deal with this Hellsing woman; armed guards were a nice idea for Shampoo to have right at the moment just in case dealings back home turned sour.

-----

Celas sighed as she watched the soldiers of Hellsing spar in the gym facilities. She had to be crazy to actually miss the workouts with Ranma as much as she was. Three days she had been avoiding him. She couldn't stand to listen to Ranma and his fiancée talk to each other in Japanese and laugh, that first night she'd gone to the gun range to vent a little hostility. Then there'd been that mission to stop some idiot who was actually recording vampires in action and broadcasting it, training was canceled that day so she wandered over to the shooting range again. Then tonight she'd woken up to find out Ranma's new fiancée and mystery WIFE had apparently met and been fighting for a large portion of the day. She licked her lips a little subconsciously as she remembered seeing the small blood splashes that were the now served as reminders to all the soldiers not to get between the two newest arrivals. Tonight she didn't have any real excuse to avoid Ranma but she wouldn't feel comfortable around him right at the moment, maybe after she got the chance to find out more about the two unwelcome newcomers. The lack of training was why she had tried to spar with humans only to discover she couldn't pull her punches enough to prevent injury to them, actually she could only pull her finger pokes down to the point where they bruised if she wanted to retain decent speed.

Alucard meanwhile watched from close by and observed the thoughts of the girl. He had to congratulate himself slightly at his apparent expertise in turning people to depression; he had managed to turn the police woman from a state of mind that was becoming happy and optimistic to one that was gloomy and on the path to hating the world around her. It was fun to see he could affect people's minds so well without just directly influencing their thoughts. It wasn't quite right though; first of all he had to have her out of any major depression if he wanted to play with her regularly, secondly he enjoyed the way Ranma's two Asian suitors were behaving; having Celas act in a likewise manner would be both amusing for him and troublesome for Ranma. Not to mention all the trouble it was causing for the other inhabitants of the building. He'd never seen so much panic in the institute caused by someone besides himself. And they had only just met that morning! Both had been busy cooking breakfast for their betrothed when they discovered the others identity and started a fight that destroyed half the kitchen and maimed several cooks and unwary soldiers. Ranma was still hiding deep underground to keep away from Integral. And Ranma didn't even know about the later scuffles yet.

Just the thought of somehow working the fledgling vampire into the fights that seemed to be inevitable made him want to fly around the compound laughing his head off. And he had a very good idea of how to start.

-----

That night a bilingual lawyer, the first one in the phone book, got a rather rude awaking as he found out just how real some myths are. He also discovered mythological creatures seem to be active enough in legal matters to want paperwork drawn up, and were fond of paying with gold coins. Needless to say with the kind of payment involved a legal document was quickly being penned. Demon or not a paying customer was a paying customer, or at least they would be if they didn't have the ability to wipe memories when bill payment came about.

-  
Later that night brought about a new spin on an old mystery: If a fat man falls in a dungeon, into a pit of horrors, and no one is around to hear does he make a noise? The answer is yes by the way, and it sounds remarkable like the cries of a child thrown into a pit of starved cats.

-----

The next night Ukyo and Shampoo glared at each other as they guarded their unwanted burden. Genma had, that morning, tried to literally tear the mansion apart to find Ranma and flee. As the only two really competent fighters awake during the daylight hours it had been up to the two of them to subdue him. It was only because Genma was fighting on instinct alone that the two had managed to take him down with no real teamwork. The only reason he hadn't escaped all day was a combination of continuous observation and some convenient vampire strength bindings Hellsing institute owned.

The situation was seriously grating on the nerves of all involved. Genma was continuosly going on about escaping with Ranma from the vampires and demon cats. Ukyo only put up with the babbling of the elder Saotome and the presence of her rival out of duty to Integral for putting her up while she stayed with Ranma. Shampoo likewise only assisted because her great-grandmother had instructed her to assist the leader of Hellsing in the elder's absence.

Shampoo was not willing to admit it but she was very close to an even match Ukyo. Their breakfast fight had ended in a draw when they were asked to stand down at gunpoint. Her sneak attack with memory erasing shampoo in the shower earlier had been countered and her shampoo was lost down the drain, calling for a strategic withdrawal. Her other encounters had ended being broken up or with one member withdrawing when it was clear the opponent had a strategic advantage. Their final fight had also met with a rather bad ending as Genma had bust through a wall beside them and they had been forced to stop him from destroying everything he came across; which was what led them to their guard position.

-----

Celas laid in her coffin, not wanting to get up and face once again being left to herself all night like she was undoubtedly doomed to be for most of her eternal lifespan. She only rose when she heard a knock on her door, something that never happened. As the lid rose off the coffin she stepped over to the door and opened it. She was surprised to find one of the butlers Hellsing employed on the other side with a clipboard and envelope in hand. "Celas Victoria, I have a letter here for you from Ranma Saotome if you could sign for it." The man held out the clipboard and fountain pen for her to take.

Celas glanced over the form she was presented with and signed at the bottom before handing it back. The delivery person thanked her and handed her the letter and a piece of paper from the clipboard. She barely had time to thank him before he hurried away.

Closing the door she ignored the loose paper she had been given she opened the blank white envelope that she had been given and unfolded the paper inside. "Ranma is a telepath." It read simply in deep red ink. "He doesn't need letters. P.S. You should be more careful about what you sign." 

Getting a bad feeling Celas looked at the loose paper she had been handed. Instead of the receipt she had expected it to be she found it to be the form she had just signed, minus the signature portion. She opened the door again to see if she could question the butler but he was already gone; he wasn't stupid enough to deny Alucard's "request" but he also wasn't going to wait around and be blamed for whatever he had just helped Alucard do.

-----

Genma had only really ever feared two people in his life. His master, Happosai, and his wife, Nodoka. The former was an honorless midget who regularly made those around him suffer. The latter was honorable enough to kill him should he disgrace the family. Now he feared a third. This new person… vampire didn't just torment Genma on the way to achieving his goals like Happosai, but seemed to just want an excuse to torture him. What kind of monster would put him through so much pain? Even after he'd signed the papers he had been given he'd been thrown back into the pit of demons. It was as though the monster relished in making Genma bleed, he'd even gone so far as to collect the blood to write the document in.

He had tried to escape as soon as the monster released him only to be subdued by the two girls Ranma was engaged to. The boy managed to cause him trouble even when he was nowhere to be found. He had struggled to escape after his capture but the bonds he was held by were quite strong. He only managed to succeed that night when a guard came to inform them that one of the vampires would come to take over the job of watching him all night. In the panic the discovery caused his mind re-awakened to the long ago sealed martial arts he himself had created, the umisen-ken and yamasen-ken. Forget honor, the damn monsters were after his blood!

It was not long before he was out in the night air behind the Hellsing institute's main building. Walls meant virtually nothing to a master of the yamasen-ken. Guards were all taken off guard with either form's style of attack before they managed to attempt to subdue him. The only real troubles were the two girls. Individually he could have subdued them and moved on, but with a second to untie the first or stop any subdual moves used on the other he was in for a bit of trouble. Trouble he couldn't afford. They were the only thing between him and a clean getaway. Ranma was still missing but he could always find another way to retrieve him.

Genma really had not wanted to hurt the girls but with how big of a problem they were being he would have to risk it. His style had one subdual move they would not escape from despite outnumbering him, though there was a chance they might not endure it as safely as he would have liked. He circled the yard, chasing the two girls while hitting the environment as much as he could, loosening dirt and destroying rock walls. Then at the right moment he jumped over simultaneous attacks from both and fired a pair of vacuum blades into one another. "Demon Deep Sea Wrap!" The girls barely registered what was happening as the vacuum that had been created pulled the dirt and debris over them in a wave. Genma looked at the shallow mound, it was nowhere near as big as it would have been had he had a sheet handy, but that was for the best. At its current size he was sure they would be able to dig themselves out before they ran out of air even without him stopping to dig their heads free.

Not wanting to waste a moment, because his attack would only stop the girls for a minute or so as it was, he started to turn and flee only to freeze in his tracks as a dark, shadowy figure with red eyes began to rise from the hill he had just created.

-----

Ranma decided he'd seen enough. He had hoped to let Ukyo and Shampoo stop his rampaging father. He'd only caught onto the fight when they passed over the area he had strategically retreated to until Integral calmed down. It had been a pretty good fight between Genma's dislike for hitting girls and the fact they outnumbered him. After the last attack Genma had used though he felt it was time to lend a hand.

Ranma rose through the earth, guiding himself under the mound that had been a result of the final attack. As he passed through he reached out and pulled the girls up through the dirt covering them as well. They panicked a little as they suddenly experienced the strange feeling of loosing all sense of touch, so Ranma released them onto the ground as soon as they fully cleared it. He looked them both over briefly to make sure they were ok and saw astonished looks directed at him. That he could understand as he'd felt the same when Alucard had first shown off his powers, but at the moment dealing with his rogue father from breaking anything else was a little more important than explaining.

Ranma didn't see his father's attack, a vacuum blade is nearly invisible from dead ahead, he only felt it as it hit him. He could not help but be astounded by the power behind the attack as it sliced through him. Even through the pain of being nearly completely bisected he couldn't help but feel amazed that his fat old father knew such an attack.

Ukyo and Shampoo were both treated to the gruesome sight of a strange crescent of air slam into Ranma and emerge from his back bright red. Shampoo, being the more battle hardened of the two merely stared in horror while Ukyo closed her eyes and began to scream bloody murder. As such only Shampoo saw the blood suddenly rip off the blade of pressure in mid-flight and recoil into Ranma's back.

Ranma sighed in relief as the pain went away, his body whole again. Instant healing was a wonderful thing. But once the pain was gone he became once again aware of sensory information that had been drowned out by the death throes of thousands of nerves. He looked at the two girls next to him; even shampoo had started to tear up a little. He hadn't wanted them to see his new powers to that extent. As it was it looked like his pop was going to get away since he couldn't just leave them there crying like they were.

Luckily for Ranma, as he sat down to try calming his fiancées Alucard took a direct hand in Genma's apprehension. Letting the fat man burn off some calories in fear inside an illusory labyrinth for a few hours would work.

-----

Ranma's work was difficult but luckily only Ukyo seemed to really be having problems with what she had seen. Shampoo had already believed Ranma to be a vampire and with assurances that his healing power was strong she was sufficiently calmed. She had faith in Ranma as he had defeated her in combat. She left soon after, right after giving him a large hug, but apparently she had orders to avoid him unless necessary until the old mummy returned. Ranma was thankful at least that she had learned some Japanese in the time since he had first seen her or that discussion would have been much harder. Ukyo had been quite a bit more of a problem. He hadn't wanted to prove his new vampiric nature to her and so the shock was quite a bit more severe. It took the better part of the remaining night to calm her down enough to talk to her rationally.

-So you're still my Ranchan?- Ukyo asked for what had to be the hundredth time.

Ranma squirmed a little at the 'my Ranchan' part but sacrifices had to be made to calm her down. -Yep. Just a lot tougher.-

The bragging certainly fit but finding one's fiancée is deceased, and still moving, was hard enough to put her mind under enough stress to ask the question as many times as she had. She just wished she could think of a way to make it all work out, even if he was himself she wasn't sure a human and vampire relationship would work out. As for her becoming a vampire…well that was definitely only a last resort. Ranma meanwhile said he couldn't turn back into a human. The same part of her mind that had always believed Ranma loved her though would not let her give up even though apparently there wasn't any way to turn a vampire such as him into a normal boy. Ukyo's mind screeched to a halt as an idea came to mind. -Ranma!-

Said vampire was taken aback by the sudden outburst. -Huh?-

-If I knew of a way to become a regular human again you'd do it right?- Desperation was clear in her voice.

Ranma thought about it for a second; he'd thought about it idly before but it never seemed like it would be a possibility, even Alucard said it couldn't happen. Despite the fact he knew it should be a tough decision it really wasn't for him. For most people it would be something that determined their entire life but for Ranma, someone who lived mostly day to day without a clear idea of long term goals, it was very straight forward. There were tons of little changes that didn't really matter, like what he could eat or when he was awake, and vampires had the advantage in three things he did care about: becoming stronger, protecting people, and surviving. The last one was especially on his mind after having to heal the wound he sustained earlier. Caught between lying and answering in a way he could tell Ukyo didn't want he choked. -Uh well I…-

Ukyo was smart enough though to understand his hesitation for what it was. Well, it wasn't as though they couldn't at least try a relationship as they were. -Your sure you don't want to?- She asked weakly though she could guess the answer.

Ranma scratched the back of his head anxiously -Well you saw how useful it is…- He winced when he realized the earlier demonstration of power was what he had just calmed her down from but to his surprise she did not seem to take it badly.

She sighed. -I guess I see your point.- Ranma owed his life, or afterlife or whatever, to his healing ability, and if it kept Ranma safe she couldn't really fault his choice too much. -But think about it, I have something that may help. You see…- she began to explain a certain detail of her trip to follow the Saotomes.

-----

Months earlier in a scarcely populated region of china Ukyo was fleeing a large furry man who called her the first girl he had ever met. He said he had smelled her coming, only adding to her need to flee from what appeared to be a major pervert. Only when she came to a valley full of small springs did he stop chasing her. She however did not stop when he gave up and continued running, frequently looking behind her. A relatively good idea, except while it protected her from dangers behind her it caused her to run heavily into a stranger. Knocking him into a nearby spring. It was not until the now female stranger ran off in a panic at what a "witch" had done to him that she learned of the powers the springs held and the details of the curses they bestowed from a local guide.

Understanding what she had accidentally done to the poor boy she had run into she purchased a few thermoses the guide kept in stock, for people who wanted to take the spring water with them, and filled them with spring water. One thermos of water to make someone a boy and two to make someone a girl. She was not going to walk around with cursed water unless she had plenty of its opposite around. She might have said she was giving up her femininity to hunt down Ranma but so long as some chance remained that she could be happy she was not going to take chances.

Ukyo had however given up on following the boy she had cursed. It was as though he was trying to loose her. More than once he had looped back to the same town and he never seemed to have an intended destination. Had she known she'd be spending so much time in china she would have simply waited in Japan until she got word of Ranma and Genma's return; china tended not to be the best place for a lone Japanese girl to travel. Instead of wasting any more time she headed straight to where Genma had been drunkenly talking about in every bar in Japan she had tracked him to, London.

-----

-Wait….- Ranma asked still not sure he should believe what he heard. -You're tellin' me you have magic water that turns people into either girls or guys? Completely human ones?-

Ukyo looked at her hands she had just been guessing that it would work on him. -Well I think it will make you a human, I mean you're already a guy so…-

Ranma however had cut her off. -Can I use them?-

Ukyo snapped her head up to look her fiancée in the eye. -You mean you'll do it!-

Ranma shook his head; he hadn't meant to get her hopes up like that. -I didn't mean on me.- He said while adopting a smirk it felt great to be on the other side of for once.

-----

A.N. ummm… Bwahaha?

Leave me comments and reviews! Especially constructive ones. Is there anything you think I should work on or include? I feel like I may have rushed through this one a little but am not sure where I should extend it. Lemme know what ya think. 


	6. Suicidal Tendencies

Chaotic Evil Part 6. Suicidal Tendencies By the Jester of Doom

Disclaimer: Let's see... I do not hold the rights over Ranma or Hellsing. I make no money off of this. The disclaimer will not attempt humor this time. Read the story if you want amusement...What's wrong with you?

Ranma slid through the walls of Hellsing merrily humming to himself as he readied his plans. Ukyo had thankfully given up on finding the boy she had originally planned to give the spring of drowned boy water to. As such she had given him all three containers since she no longer needed the spring of drowned girl water as an antidote if Ranma took the spring of drowned boy water and she didn't want the male water without its cure. All she wanted was for him to seriously consider the idea of using the water at some point, besides Ranma pleaded enough that she felt he must really want to use it on someone else; and since he had the antidote it wouldn't be too bad to use it on someone. Even if Ranma did use the water on another person though, she always knew where to get more now so she wanted him to continue considering her offer.

After he'd managed to obtain the water from Ukyo he had stayed with her until she fell asleep, talking to her calmed her and was amusing for them both. Then he had spent the night creating a devious plan, one so fool proof even Genma couldn't botch it up. As it neared noon he was feeling tired but his amusement kept him wide awake. A quick stop by the kitchen, scaring many of the cooks who usually only worked the day shifts, and he secured all the materials he needed in a handy potato sack. Then in a strange turn of events he actually left for the basement on foot, using the doors.

It was annoying finding Alucard's room on foot, Hellsing was not very intuitively designed, but he thought Alucard would be more likely to sense him while asleep if he was using his powers; as it was he was doing his best to mask his presence and using every ounce of his training in moving silently. Alucard's room was actually very nice for being at the bottom of a dungeon. Wood paneling covered the room, which was kept very tidy, and it looked more like it belonged in a library or old castle than in a basement. There were racks of books and a comfortable looking chair and fancy table, a room that fit well with a dated sense of luxury. The only odd thing about the decor was the black coffin that lay on the floor, Ranma's target.

Using tongs he had pilfered Ranma set silverware and silver candle sticks along the edges of the coffin, just in case Alucard tried to exit it through the sides. Then over the top he placed a cookie tin, and poured into it a thermos of Jusenkyo water. Then he stood back and admired his work, a plan so simple it couldn't fail. #WAKE UP!#

Alucard bolted upright in his coffin. He had expected Ranma to at some point attempt the same stunt to wake him up that had worked before. This time though he was prepared, the first time he had not really expected it though he claimed he had; this time instead of feign expectance he foiled Ranma's meager attempt at a prank by letting himself slide through the coffin's top. Then he noticed Ranma standing there waiting for him and smirking, that's when he started to feel the tingle.

Ranma was pleased to see that the mental yell attack had caused Alucard to dodge as expected, he knew the old vampire had reflexes fast enough to not be surprised by the same trick twice and was not let down. The sight was very intriguing as Alucard slowly began to gain a more human skin tone. Luckily, when phasing through objects, materials continued on if released instead of getting stuck; so even as Alucard lost control over his powers he continued to slide up through the coffin's top until he had completely passed through. Ranma looked at the wide-eyed woman staring down at the robes that draped over her. "Pretty good one huh?"

-----

Integral looked up as Ranma phased through the wall of her office carrying a struggling black-haired woman. Ranma's face had a burn mark that looked suspiciously like the shape of her formal candle sticks. What really attracted her attention though was the struggling girl bound and held over his shoulder. "Ranma! What's the meaning of this?"

Ranma just gave her a stupid smile as he walked up to her desk and placed upon it a thermos and a letter he had decided to write after he saw Alucard's reaction to his sudden change. Then he began to slide down through the floor with a small laugh, leaving Alucard behind.

The letter had been something he had just come up with to cut down on all the trouble of being questioned by his boss. The thermos was a bribe. He'd seen it countless times from his father and he didn't really have another use for the stuff. He had planned to use it on Integral to piss her off. Then he realized shortly after subduing Alucard that pissing Integral off and then handing her Hellsing's ultimate weapon was probably a little bit stupid. Hopefully giving it to her as a present would convince Integral to help him out, after all water that could turn any vampire into a normal human boy would be a very useful weapon to a vampire hunter.

-----

Ranma entered the prison room still smiling as he stepped out of the wall. He was surprised to see Walter guarding his restrained father in the room. They must have been taking Genma's escape attempt very seriously to have the ex-angel of death take over. Well that would just mean he wouldn't have to track Walter down and explain as much as he had expected he would. "Hey Walter" Ranma greeted the man.

Walter tipped his head to him "Greetings young Mr. Saotome. Come to visit your father?" The older gentleman looked at the unconscious martial artist. After Genma had fainted from fear and exhaustion in Alucard's maze illusion he had been returned to the cell by Walter.

"Not exactly." Ranma said as he pulled his last thermos from his bag. "Just came by ta pull a little prank. I need your help too, I just pulled a great one on Alucard and need ta get some stuff ready."

That got Walter's attention a little, he'd never heard of anyone succeeding in pulling something on their oldest resident vampire. "Oh? And what exactly did you do?"

Ranma finished unscrewing the thermos he held and stepped up to his father. "This," he said as he upended the container.

-----

Alucard tried to think of a way to kill Ranma. Nobody had been kind enough to explain the temporary nature of Jusenkyo curses so he was having quite a bit of trouble coming up with a way to actually overpower Ranma, the fact he could no-longer lift his own guns well and his now flawed aim were very limiting problems. Also the fact that his master had confiscated his guns after he decided to go hunt Ranma down was a problem. Besides shooting him the only plans Alucard could formulate required substantially more power than his new form allowed.

Integral had not believed Ranma's letter in the slightest when Alucard was originally dropped off but when Walter came to inform Integral of Genma's fate she had quickly changed her views. If Walter believed the story to be true then she would trust him. In light of the transformation she even took the day off, for the first time in god knows how long, to help Alucard adjust to the change. She said it was to help him anyway, to a large degree however she just wanted to see how the ancient immortal would handle life as a weak mortal human female. She had been the butt of enough jokes over the years to enjoy watching her tormentor repaid a little. She also had to keep him away from hot water. And so, as it was, Integral babysat the cursed vampire for the remainder of the day. 

A trip to the cafeteria for lunch was very early on their to-do list. After disarming Alucard the talk of his desire to dismember Ranma quickly grew tiring. While they could have enjoyed a quite meal in Integrals office like she normally ate, Integral saw no reason to waste Alucard's first day as a human sitting in her office, not when she could parade him around in front of others. Alucard has actually even begun enjoying the experience human taste buds offered after she coerced him into eating. That was of course only until his appetite was ruined by a small stream of men hitting on her. The first, a man who had enjoyed telling everyone how evil the new vampire was soon after Ranma's arrival, had backed off with just a glare. The second, the officer who gave Ranma a dressing down for eating in front of the troops, earned a guttural growl from the cursed immortal. The third was a jerk who Ranma had heard informing some new recruits about the "blood sucking demons who would kill women and children for fun if the Hellsing family hadn't placed them under a spell". He ran off when Alucard bent a fork when she clenched her fist too tightly around it. The fourth, a sleazy guy who liked ogling Celas, got the worst of it when Alucard jumped him and tried to stab his eyes out with the aforementioned bent fork. Interestingly Ranma hadn't even sent that guy, it was just karma.

After the whole homicidal rage incident was settled down Integral decided to head into the town with Alucard instead of remaining in the building full of soldiers she knew tended not to have the best of manners around women. To handle the problem of Alucard attempting to murder civilians she brought along a small escort of operatives she knew to be uninterested in women, that way no guards would get killed while keeping the civilians away. She only really had time during the first part of her meal to come up with ideas of what to do with a human Alucard but she did not want to waste what time she had before he learned the cure.

It was during what Alucard considered a rather tedious day in the mundane world of humans that Integral managed to plan out that he managed to find the one reason, besides inability, why Ranma may not die. Ice-cream. Ranma would still suffer as much as Alucard could humanly cause but double fudge chocolate chunk ice-cream was the one redeeming aspect of humanity for which Alucard might show some mercy. Few things could match the powers of chocolate had ice-cream in calming women. It also completely halted Integral's attempts at showing Alucard the otherwise mundane wonders of mortal life. Several wounds caused by plastic spoon attacks when her guards tried to convince Alucard to leave encouraged Integral to let Alucard stay until he had eaten his fill, and even then she had been made to buy all the available chocolate ice-cream to take home before Alucard left willingly. Then after sending a few people to deliver the frozen goods to Hellsing's kitchen it was back to the boring lifestyle humans led.

After their eventual return, and a detour to Hellsing's freezers for more ice cream, he had received his final 'fun' surprise for the night. Ranma, with a heavy reliance on Walter's aid, had prepared for him room fit for a princess, or at least for a 10 year old girl who wanted to be a princess. Pink was everywhere, they'd even wallpapered the room. Doilies sat on the tables. Teddy-bears sat on a pink covered four poster bed. Frilly dolls lined a shelf. Dresses hung in the closet. On second thought, Ranma would definitely die.

-----

Ranma awoke the next afternoon. After staying up as long as he had he had fallen asleep early in the night and was no longer on his normal sleeping schedule. After exiting his coffin he saw the furniture he had left in front of his door had been moved slightly. A quick check outside revealed his door had also gotten slightly scratched up. He was happy he had left the pile of otherwise useless furniture blocking the entrance in case Alucard stopped by.

A brief stop by Alucard's new room showed that Alucard had not taken kindly to the choice of dИcor. Small amounts of doily and singed fur were in the fireplace. Four of the bears were impaled upon the four posts of the bed. Wallpaper was torn off of the walls and thrown into the closet, where the clothes had disappeared from. The dolls... well its best not to mention what had been done to the dolls. And finally all the chairs and the table had been smashed for raw materials to make sharpened wooden stakes, several of which were sitting on the bed. Ranma was almost annoyed by how much of his work had been destroyed before he remembered this was kind of the reaction he was hoping for. The stakes were not a good sign however. It was probably a very good thing he had blocked his own door.

-----

Ranma slid down through the walls of Hellsing feeling slightly guilty. It wasn't due to anything he had done to Alucard of course, no that was all funny. But all good things came to an end and after a few days Ranma had temporarily run out of good forms of harassing Alucard. Due to his lack of skill as a manipulator he could not play with Alucard's head much. Also due to the combination of Alucard being a girl at the moment and the lack of regenerative power he did not feel very comfortable with the physical humor; though hanging him on a coat rack had been funny. But since he no longer had anything really to do besides openly taunt Alucard, and that was getting old, he remembered that he had neglected to train his student for a week. Even his father never really did that. Granted the first three days had not really been his fault, but as soon as he had transformed Alucard he hadn't done much besides annoy the newly cursed vampire.

Ranma floated down through the ceiling of Celas' room and came to a rest on the ground. "Master!" the girl exclaimed in surprise as she looked up from a book she had been lying in bed and reading. She had taken up reading because she had not had much desire to leave her room much besides when she was called upon, like when she had her turn guarding Ranma's father. A task she did not enjoy.

She did learn a little bit about Ranma from the duty. Ranma never really talked about his past but Genma had. After the first night of Genma fearing her she had managed to assure him she wouldn't hurt him. After that he complained about Ranma enough, when not pleading to be let go, that she was picking things up, like how Ranma met Shampoo and Ukyo thus leading to Genma's failed escape attempt. God she had felt stupid when she learned he was much younger than she was. she had expected that he was centuries older; the idea that Ranma had not only been a human but had been a human so recently had never occurred to her. If nothing else the way he had rescued her made her think of him as an older powerful vampire. How the hell does one envision a normal 16 year old coming to the rescue like that? She hadn't liked the fact she was robbing the cradle, though then again robbing the grave wasn't much better. She especially didn't like it when she realized she wanted to do both at the same time.

"Hey." Ranma said with a small nervous wave. He hoped she wasn't too mad he had left her to her own devices so long. Come to think of it Ukyo might not be too happy either, but at least she knew where he was. He'd have to visit her too later. "Sorry I've been gone for a while. I've been annoying Alucard as much I could." At least it was an excuse she may sympathize with since Alucard had apparently been picking on her. "You been ok?"

Celas smiled a bit at his news and nodded. At least he hadn't been off with his fiancИes. She knew now that he hadn't chosen either of the engagements himself and wasn't sure where she wanted to stand in the whole mess. On one hand she knew he was too young for her. On the other hand they were both vampires and with their lifespans a few years would not mean much in the long run and she didn't want someone else to snag him while she sat by the sidelines and waited for him to get older. Knowing he was too young had unfortunately done nothing to curb her feelings, or at least not enough. Then again on the third, mutant appendage there was the fact that Ranma did have two other girls who liked him. Who was she kidding, after all, she wasn't the type to fight for someone who was already taken, let alone taken by two women. It would be different if she really had a good claim on him, but that wasn't going to happen.

Noticing a bit of an awkward silence had formed while she thought about her own dilemma she decided to elaborate her answer to his question. "I haven't been called on many missions. I've mostly just been guarding your father." She wondered if Ranma had heard what had happened to the older martial artist. "Have you gone to see him?"

"Not for a while." Ranma cracked a grin, "he still a woman?"

Celas released a little breath; she hadn't wanted to break the news to him. She only knew what had happened because she was guarding him. "You already knew?"

"Of course. Who'd you think did that to him?" Ranma looked quite proud of himself.

Celas was surprised. Genma had told her that Alucard had done it. "You did it? Wh-Why? How?"

"Yeah, trust me he deserved it." Many events were called into Ranma's mind, the neko-ken a very prominent one among them. "Man does he deserve it...but yeah just used some magic water stuff and poof he's a girl. That's how I've been annoying Alucard too." Ranma finished with a large grin.

That idea seemed most definitely deserved, though very surprising. "You turned Alucard into a girl?!" 

"Yep a normal powerless human girl too, man was he pissed. He keeps trying to stab me of course but he can't. He's just not fast enough. One time..." Ranma noticed his audience had stopped paying attention. That took all the fun out of recounting how much he had pissed off Alucard. "Celas?"

"Human?" she asked in a bit of shock. It took her a moment before she managed a sentence. "You made him a human?"

Ranma nodded his head dumbly; he wasn't sure why she was looking so intense suddenly.

Much like Ranma no thought was needed by Celas to decide if she wanted her humanity back but unlike him had opted to live. She had wished there was some way she could have stayed alive as a human from the night she had been bitten. As such she jumped at the chance, "Do it to me!"

"What?" Ranma asked in a bit of surprise.

"Make me a human again!"

Ranma flinched a little bit...he knew he was forgetting something after he used the last of the water on Genma, some small part of his brain telling him he could have found some other use for the water if he thought about it. Man was she going to be pissed, he knew she didn't like having lost her humanity. "Umm, I can't...I used it all."

Celas' eyes lost the look of hope that had a moment before been in them. Her best hope at humanity was gone before she even knew it existed. Her eyes started to tear up a little.

For Ranma this of course looked bad. He offered his best other solution though he knew it was a crappy one. "Integral has water that turns people into regular guys..."

Celas couldn't help but let some tears escape. She wanted to be a human so she could be normal, not a girl trapped in a man's body!

"Gah! Please don't cry! Please don't cry!" Ranma panicked and tried to think of a solution. "I'll find some more, I promise! Ucchan said she knows where to get more I think! Don't cry, please!" Ranma fell to the busy task of reassuring the girl that he'd find a way to fix his little mistake.

-----

It was when Integral had insisted Alucard eat lunch with her at an outdoor cafИ a day later that Alucard discovered the temporary nature of his curse. He leaned back in his chair after he had finished his meal and bumped a passing waiter. He was quickly covered in hot tea as a result. As the strange tingle occurred he felt coldness spread as his body died from the point where it was hit with the hot water and cannibalized the rest of his form. He was in shock as he felt the change occur, otherwise he would have understood how bad it was that he was in the sunlight at noon. He also would have realized how bad an idea it had been to rub garlic on himself incase he got the chance to touch Ranma. The holy silver necklace he was wearing would likewise not have seemed like such a bright idea in retrospect.

-----

As Alucard lay in his coffin to help speed up his healing he considered the issue of what exactly to do to Ranma. Alucard couldn't exactly claim that he hadn't deserved the curse. Were it permanent Ranma would have to watch for a stake through the heart until Alucard died of old age. As it seemed to have been a one time thing part of him could appreciate its value retroactively. He still thought it was going farther than was called for. Ranma just had seemed perfect for the pranks Alucard had pulled on him, he didn't think suffering humanity was fitting for himself. Besides, most of his pranks were innocent enough, in his opinion anyway. In the long run no harm was really done in that dream scheme due to Walter. Currently Celas was a little more depressed than he had wanted to make her, but he was fixing that a little anyway so no harm done really; he didn't hate his fledglings after all, just wanted to play with them a bit. It was just a big game after all, he was jut testing his mastery of it. Nothing really seemed to warrant an attack on his immortality in his opinion; it's not something that would be completely forgotten a decade or two later like his pranks had been.

What Ranma really needed was some serious persuasion to never try something like that again on one of his superiors. Perhaps something he that would make him struggle to survive would be good. He was planning on forcing Ranma to improve through combat anyway, he could try to expand on that; give him some challenge he would have trouble handling. That kind of thing always made the humans feel things like regret over their past actions. Preferably something that would not involve a direct fight with himself, some kind of long difficult experience would be good. Hmm difficult experience he would hate... yes, something forcing Ranma to spend time with his father...

AN: Ok so a lot of people asked. This does have a very high likelihood of being Ranma / Celas. I am not saying in this chapter Celas gave up on Ranma. My betas think it sounds too much like that. But while I am very prone to changing my stories I 100 guarantee Celas will be staying in the race. I have said before that my plans often get changed on the fly, as such I can not give an absolute guarantee of Ranma and Celas. It is what I'm leaning towards right this second however, I'll admit that.

So concerning the curse lasting for a week, hot water seems less attracted than cold does. And usually the curses only occur or reverse when inconvenient for the curse victim and it was much more inconvenient for Alucard here to stay a woman than to change back.

Also I got a few comments saying Alucard was too mean... I dunno, I'm kinda thinking he considers most things done to other vampires as easily forgivable... Hell you can lock one into a basement for decades and they'll get over it eventually, not saying Alucard is 100 over it but one day he would be. Vampires are a resilient bunch, and they have long enough lives you could really utterly destroy long stretches of it and not do anything bad long term. Also remember Alucard used to slaughter people for fun, and still does in the comic... I think I'm giving him pretty decent moral improvement here.

Also: Huzzah! I have a new beta. Thanks Sephirotho for agreeing to help. Also thanks to the older betas cuz I forgot to do a thank you before: Blindman X, Piemur1, and Black Mage.

One last note (damn this is a long AN) fair warning I'm back in college and need to re-read some of Ranma... I'm already most of the way through again but I need to finish it all since I realized just how much I might have had the fanon in my head of some characters. Anyway this means more will come, but not super fast. 


	7. Traveling Music

Chaotic Evil Part 7. Traveling Music By the Jester of Doom

Disclaimer: I feel it is my civic duty to inform all who read this that I do not own any characters in this story. I have felt the loss a lack of disclaimer can lead to and wish to protect others from my misfortune. I have traveled to Japan to see the sites of epic battles for all of mankind, and yet it is sadly true Godzilla was never here. Where were disclaimers when I needed them? Where were they???? My worldview is shattered.

-----

Integral grunted slightly as she sat down at her desk. Her sleep during the early morning had been fitful at best. Alucard was probably trying to repay her for helping Ranma's plans. As a result she had experienced some of her worst nightmares in a very condensed form. He didn't allow her a minute of decent sleep all night.

There was a light hum filling the room originating from no where in particular. In no time at all she had a splitting headache. She simply ignored whatever game Alucard was playing and went about her work. She had a large stack of papers to look over and it was never helpful to let Alucard know he was bothering you. Best to let him play his game until he was bored... or until you get a chance to shoot him. 

A few hours later she was placing the last paper in the stack of orders to be carried out. As soon as her hand left the sheet, they abruptly disappeared into the desk and emerged in her inbox. Her signature wiped from them all. A muffled curse met this discovery. This time it went much faster to sign them as the paperwork had already been read over once. Once again however the papers reappeared in the inbox as soon as the last one was finished. Integral knew it was probably a futile act but she once again picked up her pen, the orders did need to be completed and she just had to wait until he got bored. If you didn't act like he wanted he would get bored and leave before too long but if you played along he would keep it up all night. On the other hard... she glanced at the drawer in which she kept her gun. One way or another she would get her paperwork done.

Alucard smirked as he watched his master's reaction. She was a human, she had her limits. Soon her attention would wander and he would have the authorizations he wanted.

-----

A butler sobbed as he read a passage from the book in front of him. He knew nothing about magic or vampires or anything like that and wished someone else had been found to do the job he was being forced to do. But despite his wishes Alucard had forced him to perform the rite he was reading with a combination of orders signed by Sir Integral and a very large gun.

His first job had been simple enough; just secure the coffin down in one of the seemingly unused rooms in the basement with blessed silver chains. However, after the work was done Alucard had pulled out a book, consulted it, and then traced a shape onto the lid of the coffin with the contents of a blood packet. This was understandably where the butler became very worried, and his worry was well placed as Alucard then forced him to read the book, handwritten in Latin he could barely make out, at gunpoint. He promised himself if he made it out of that situation alive he would be resigning immediately.

Inside the coffin Ranma rolled over, oblivious to what happened outside. Even before his demise Ranma had slept like the dead.

-----

Alucard phased through the wall of the cell Genma was being held in to find it was late enough into the day for Ranma's fianc?s to be standing guard over the prisoner. Integral had not been stupid enough to release him yet, she had no doubt in her mind he would attempt to steal Ranma away and attract untold amounts of attention in the process.

Not feeling a particularly strong desire for subtlety he simply directed a glare at the two girls as he willed them to fall asleep. With those two out of the way he turned his attention to the now panicking woman chained to the wall. Nobody had felt the need to inform Genma of the cure to his cursed condition. Something he hoped to exploit; best to offer a reward as well as punishment when dealing with someone. "Enjoying your curse?" He asked amusedly.

"Keep away from me!" Genma pulled at his restraints, after his breakout they had found ones he could not break.

"Tsk tsk tsk, and here I came to offer you the cure."

Genma froze. "Cure?"

"Yes...well if you do me a favor of course. Then again this isn't the kind of offer you can refuse..." Alucard grinned as he began to detail the mission he had for Genma.

-----

AN: A language shift is occurring here... since most people involved now speak Japanese English will be -like this- and Japanese will be the normal speech.  
Shampoo woke up to the sound of a fat woman in a gi trying to lift something far too heavy for her. She sat up slowly, shaking the drowsiness from her head, and took stock of her surroundings. The last thing she had seen was the elder vampire come through the wall while she had been guarding her fat father...mother-in-law. Currently she was in the countryside though she had no idea where. The sun still had not quite set but it was close to night. Besides her on the ground was the girl who claimed to be engaged to her husband. Beyond the interloper were two coffins, both chained shut. Between them Genma was trying to lift each one by the chains using one arm each. Off to one side was a small crate.

Genma was simply trying to make the fastest get-away he could with his unconscious son, who he knew to be in one of the coffins. After the helicopter that had carried them here had left his vision he had instantly tried to make off with Ranma. Alucard might have won over Genma's agreement while present, but as soon as Alucard had said he had unlocked the curse placed on him and the vampire was no longer in view any loyalties went out the window. Now that Genma knew there was a cure he could find easily he wouldn't need anything from that vampire. He only needed to fear punishment if he thought he would be caught after all. Not wanting to wake anyone during his escape he had attempted to simply grab both caskets and be long gone before the girls awoke. He had however been surprised at their weight; he had expected wooden cases with little to no padding, not the mattresses and motors housed inside Ranma and Celas' very large coffins.

Genma was of course surprised when he suddenly looked over to find a purple haired girl perched on one of the caskets with bonbori drawn. Keeping one of the maces pointed at Genma, Shampoo knocked on both the coffin lids with her other weapon. "Airen ok?" She asked, not sure of what exactly Genma had been doing but able to assume that Ranma must have occupied one of the two containers.

In the coffin under her a muffled complaint of "It's too early pop." Was heard before some rustling noises. In the other there was some rustling, then a moment later the lid lifted slightly only to be stopped by the chains. -What's going on? Why isn't this thing opening?- could be heard muttered from inside. Behind her, Shampoo also heard Ukyo begin to stand. Genma looked nervously at the sudden amount of conscious people he might have to deal with and backed out from between the coffins to gain more room. 

Shampoo frowned slightly; she would have expected a warrior like Ranma to wake up to something pounding over his head. She repeated her actions of pounding on the coffin lid, "Airen wake up!" this time she did not stop until a response came from below.

"Alright I'm up already, jeez!" Ranma answered in annoyance and started to sit up and phase through the roof of his bed. As soon as his skin touched the chains surrounding the casket there was a small detonation and he quickly reversed direction. Everyone stared as at the point of the tiny blast, even Celas stopped trying to lift her coffin hood to try to peek out through the small gap at the top. Ranma expanded his senses to see where the silver was. "Damnit! Can someone get these stupid chains off?" He could jostle them off himself but would probably break his bed in the process.

Both fianc?s looked at the chains. They were too thick to break. Neither knew how to pick locks. Luckily the chains were wound around the caskets messily. "Don't worry Ranchan I'll have you out of there in no time." Ukyo told him and moved to start using the slack on the chains to slide them off while still locked.

Shampoo meanwhile turned to confront Genma. "What you do?" She held a weapon up menacingly.

Genma raised his hands to placate the girl. "Nothing! I was just waking Ranma. That horrible vampire did this!"

"Alucard..." Ranma said somewhat annoyed from inside his bed; Genma shivered slightly at the name. It was clear he had figured out how to reverse his curse while Ranma had been busy elsewhere. Ranma wasn't quite sure of what to expect but he assumed being locked in his coffin and, from what he sensed, outside somewhere, was not a very large portion of it. Then again who could know for sure what Alucard would do.

Ranma felt Ukyo fiddling with the chains enough to make a gap he could exit through and decided to phase through it, surprising Ukyo as his head popped though the wood. Despite knowing he was a vampire she doubted she would ever really get used to seeing that. As soon as he was clear of the box he reoriented himself and set his feet on the ground. "Thanks Ucchan." He looked at Celas' coffin. "Can you help Celas? I can't touch this stuff." Genma looked at him strangely, he had wondered what the small burst had been and Ranma's comment made no sense; he had not actually bothered to learn anything about vampires.

"Sure thing sugar." Ukyo replied with a nod and went to go help the other vampire.

Ranma looked around farther than he had done with his vampiric senses. There were no buildings near by and he didn't recognize the area. The sun was still up but close to setting, it was dark enough he decided to just sit in the shade of his bed to avoid any unnecessary burning instead of re-entering the coffin. Perhaps Alucard had just decided to make him find his way back when lost. "You guys know where we are?" He received negative responses all around, even after repeating the question in English for Celas.

Ukyo worked diligently at the task of actually removing all the bindings from Celas' sarcophagus, Ranma hid from the sun, Genma tried to plan an escape with Ranma, Celas remained trapped, and Shampoo decided to look into the crate that she had seen. She pried it open to find a pair of envelopes, a gun with a note attached, and random clothing strewn about inside. She lifted one of the envelopes and barely made out the name written in English upon it. "Is for you, I think, Airen." She told her betrothed before replacing the envelope and lifting the box to bring to him.

Ranma looked up as she set the box down by him. "Thanks Shampoo." Ranma reached into the crate and removed the letter from the top. His name was written in what he could tell was dried blood on the front and a wax seal of Hellsing institute was on the back. Breaking the seal he removed the letter inside and began to read.

-I Integral Wingates Hellsing order the immediate transfer of agents Ranma Saotome and Celas Victoria to Japan. Travel once on the mainland is to be restricted to non-commercial ground transport. Upon arrival in Tokyo further instructions will be provided. Temporary agent Xian Pu is to act as an escort throughout Asia for agents Saotome and Victoria. Unauthorized return of agents Saotome and Victoria are grounds for immediate Termination.- Ranma grumbled as he read the orders. At the bottom was Integral's signature, somewhat sloppy due to fatigue. For all he knew they were real orders; he'd never received written orders before. He certainly didn't like the lack of warning but at least he didn't mind the orders themselves much; a free plane trip to Japan sure would have been nice though. He just hoped the others wouldn't mind.

Setting down the orders he looked over a second page of paper that had been included. -Ranma,- It began in a very flowing handwriting inked in dried blood. -Integral may be sending you out of my reach but next time we meet I will teach you a lesson about respecting your betters. The next time I see any of you the occasion will be...memorable.- Ranma's eye twitched slightly, Integral's orders definitely did not seem like such a bad idea. -With my deepest loathing, Alucard-

He looked back into the box to see what the other envelope and note attached to his gun said. The second envelope was addressed to not only him but all three girls as well and had a very strange condition to it. -Open only at the Tendo Dojo, Nermia, Japan.- He set it aside for the moment and looked at the note tied to his gun. It was once again written in Alucard's bloody script. -Instead of over burdening you with ammo like Integral wanted I only gave you what you really need.- Ranma removed the clip and found a single silver exploding bullet with his name on it, literally; Alucard had written -Ranma- on the casing in marker. As he placed the clip back into the pistol and sighed at Alucard's idea of humor, he silently thanked the kami that at least he wouldn't have to put up with any more of Alucard's pranks for a long time. He didn't notice the strange peal of distant thunder on the clear day.

Ranma hoped everyone would take the mission they had been given well. Looking back at the orders he decided he'd have to tell them all soon and decided to get it over with

-----

In a manor quite a ways off from Ranma's location a man looked up from his reading as he felt a strange power enter his range of perception. It wasn't anything like he was used to. He'd felt many kinds of unholy power before but this was less of a strong monster and more of a beacon calling him to a meal. He looked back to his book, the target was still quite a ways off and he wanted to finish the chapter he was on.

-----

Soon after, a priest rose from prayers with a look of horror on his face. He wasn't completely sure what he had felt but the evil he had sensed quickly set running around the church to collect holy objects.

-----

Far away, a man suddenly choked on his beer. He'd never actually sensed a demon from a distance before so when he suddenly felt a demonic presence miles away he knocked people down as he hurried out of the bar he'd been in. Of all the days to have left his sword at home.

-----

Later, a boy's eyes suddenly widened while he was sucking his latest victim dry. He let the corpse he was holding drop and looked behind him. His blood-lust was nowhere near sated and he could feel a meal nearby.

-----

Ranma looked back at Celas and Shampoo, they were the only ones who had problems with the current plan of action. Genma had fidgeted a lot when the dojo was mentioned as their destination but Ranma had not really been paying him much attention.

Shampoo did not like the idea of leaving Hellsing when her grandmother had told her to stay put. However she had also been ordered to follow Integral's orders, and she was by amazon law supposed to be pursuing Ranma. The threat of imminent pain to anyone returning didn't help her want to go back either. So as it was she chose to stay close to Ranma. Technically she would be disobeying orders either way, so she could at least enjoy her husband's company if she was going to get in trouble. Besides, her great grandmother may understand, hopefully. Understandably she was visibly quite distressed despite assuring Ranma she would travel with him.

Celas just had not had time to adjust to the idea in Ranma's opinion. She'd get used to it eventually. Besides not knowing the language she didn't have any really good reason for not wanting to go, she couldn't really think of anything holding her back to London; this realization did not help her mood however. She just didn't like the sudden forced relocation. She also didn't really like the idea of going back though once Ranma mentioned Alucard's letter. She was a good soldier, she would go without complaint but it still seemed unfair. An order, no matter how badly written, was an order. And this one came with a threat of pain. To sweeten the deal Ukyo had promised to take them to Jusenkyo on the way and Ranma had promised to help her learn Japanese with a trick Alucard had wanted him to use to teach Ukyo English. Not surprisingly the idea of becoming a human again quickly brought about some enthusiasm about at least that portion of the trip.

Ranma stopped as he looked back in front of him and saw a man with red eyes watching them from a short distance down the dirt road. The man had definitely not been there when Ranma looked away. While the humans in the group might have had trouble seeing in the moonlight he could see a long distance past the newcomer clearly. The area around them had small boulders and sparse tree cover but the new arrival had not suddenly appeared from behind them or Ranma would have noticed. He began to set down the coffin he had held over his shoulder. Behind him he could hear Celas doing the same as she saw the stranger. #Hold it. We've got company. Looks like a vampire.# Ranma warned them all telepathically in languages they understood.

Right behind him he heard his fianc?s slip coils of silver chain from their shoulders into their hands. His father had placed the crate on the ground and was falling into a ready stance beside him. From Celas he heard the opening of the holster of the gun he had given her.

As they all stopped the formally dressed figure before them started to slowly approach and chuckled slightly. Ranma took the opportunity before he attacked to look for nearby ghouls and gauge his opponent with his higher senses. Ranma swore internally and passed on the knowledge what he felt to the others telepathically. #Two humans are approaching fast from the left and right. Some really weak vampire is coming at us fast from behind with 10 ghouls. And if the one in front of us attacks you should all run.# They all spread out somewhat to prepare for a multidirectional attack.

-This is it?- The vampire approaching them from the front asked. -YOU are creating such a big disturbance? And here I had hoped to find something interesting.- The man pretended to stifle a yawn behind his hand. -This will hardly even be a fight.- There was a gleam in his eye as he finished, and Ranma could feel him shaping some energy.

Ranma didn't wait to see what the attack was, there were too many possible targets it could be besides himself. #Run!# Ranma had yet to try fighting a vampire without weapons, let alone one that was so powerful. He hadn't even been practicing using his powers much, he'd been pre-occupied with training Celas to survive annoying Alucard that he had not practiced anything besides martial arts since he had been released. He did however have full energy stores and a good idea of how to use them. Considering the power of his opponent he decided to try what Alucard had said was part of how true vampires fought, something that would be a highly destructive power once he was old enough.

Celas was the only one who could clearly see the change as Ranma fell to his knees and began to shrink down into his clothes. To everyone else it seemed as though Ranma was hit by some invisible attack and was floored with a grunt. Genma instantly released his best diversion, a vacuum blade, at the threat and took his son's advice to heart, retreating to the side. Ukyo and Shampoo meanwhile took to launching forward with their chains to attack anyone who threatened Ranma.

Ranma leapt forwards at his enemy. He was somewhat amazed by how correct his body felt; he had not thought of it before the change but despite the new construction of his body he felt used to movement in the form, it just seemed natural to him. Behind him he felt a surge of energy where he had been standing. His enemy had taken too long to prepare since he had been taken off guard by Genma's attack. One arm was missing from the attack and so Ranma directed himself at the other.

As a small black blur launched from Ranma's clothes Celas felt a sudden oppressive air occupy a five foot radius around his former location. Shampoo and Ukyo had yet to notice it and were about to charge through it. On instinct she dropped her gun and dove into them and knocked them to the side as the air in front of them began to take on a black tint. The human girls' eyes widened as they saw Ranma leap forward in his new form an instant before the air around him changed. As they hit the ground a small explosion occurred as her bare arm impacted some silver chain.

Spurred on by the sound of the sudden detonation a tall man in causal clothing leapt over the rocks on the left side of the road toward where he sensed the strongest source of evil. A blonde man dressed in clothing that would have been fashionable a century prior was trying to shake a small black furball off of one arm while the other arm was raising from the ground and beginning to rejoin his body at the shoulder. Target acquired.

On the other side of the road a man in priestly robes was sprinting out of some distant tree cover when he saw the scene. A man with a sword who was squaring off against a vampire and its familiar, a woman who was running away, and a vampiress who had pinned two young girls to the ground. He flicked a blessed knife into his hand. He would help the damsels in distress first.

As a man with a sword Jumped to attack Ranma's target Ranma could feel the arm he had latched his jaws onto move to block the attack with his body. He cursed silently that he could be forced about so easily. When Alucard had said he would need to grow into his powers he had not realized he would literally need to grow for them to be useful. At least the wounds he caused should not be easy to heal. He released the arm to avoid the sword and fell to the ground. Since his enemy was busy with the sudden appearance of the swordsman Ranma decided to use the time to cause as much damage as he could, starting at the Achilles tendon; second nature to a wolf.

As Celas lifted herself off of Shampoo and Ukyo, with her left hand holding tightly onto the burn on her right arm, she yelled in pain as a dagger found its way into her right shoulder. Both girls still on the ground quickly jumped to their feet. Ukyo pulled her battle spatula off her back and shouldered her chain again. "I'll take this guy." Shampoo nodded and set off against the angry vampire while Ukyo started to rush the very surprised holy man. Celas pulled the dagger out of her shoulder and looked for where she was needed most. The enemy vampire had three skilled attackers fighting him. The priest would have trouble with Ukyo alone. And rapidly approaching she could see a red-eyed boy with an uzi running towards them with ten ghouls struggling to keep up. She shifted her grip on the dagger and set off to intercept.

Ranma leapt at the chest of his opponent and let himself phase through for a diversion, so he could attack from behind. He was only doing minor damage but the wounds he caused were bleeding and not healing quickly. Shampoo was trying to lash or lasso the vampire with her chains. The strange man with the sword was just trying to chop off the head or stab through the heart, other blows were only landed as attempts to block or dodge failed. Together they were wearing their opponent down however. If the vampire stopped long enough to form an attack he would be hit from three sides. The best he was managing was to close a large number of his wounds and the occasional unskilled physical attack.

Ukyo was having a relatively easy time with her opponent, she had yet to bring him down but he was reluctant to attack her. It wouldn't be long though until she managed to catch him, the only problem was he was leading her further away from helping Ranma as he fled from her.

Celas was having a hard time of stopping her opponent. He was armed and was using ghouls to shield himself as he tried to force his way past her. She had cut down three of the ten and left a few wounds on their master but had in return for her trouble received two bullet wounds. She did not however want the armed assailant anywhere near the humans.

The tide of the battle only turned once Ukyo had successfully knocked out her opponent and returned to help Ranma and Shampoo. With the additional support they managed to pin the vampire down long enough for the swordsman to lop its head off. As the vampire shrieked and began to turn to ash Shampoo, Ukyo, and Ranma prepared to help Celas with the last threat. The swordsman however looked at the dying vampire strangely and turned to stare at Ranma. Despite the vampires demise he still felt the evil energy as strong as ever and he knew it was not from the girls; that only left the mutt. Attacking Ranma was of course not the best idea he had ever had, especially as he was standing next to two of the vampire's fianc?s.

Celas finished with her opponent and turned to limp back to her friends. She had been shot three more times, all in the leg, and walking was extremely painful. She watched Ranma run by her, a sword that should not have been supported by his small puppy body was clenched in his mouth. The stranger who owned the sword chased Ranma around in circles as Ukyo and Shampoo tried to catch him. Ranma had not wanted to severely injure the man and so had just disarmed him and let the girls handle subduing him. It did not take long of course, Shampoo blocked his path and Ukyo paddled him into the ground repeatedly with her spatula. Shampoo then took it upon herself to chain him up.

Satisfied Ranma spit the sword out onto the ground. He sat down on his haunches and everyone got their first good look at him when he was not in motion. He looked like a small black wolf cub, only about a foot long. He looked around for a moment with his red eyes, looking for the other human and his father. He concentrated his senses for a moment and a third eye on his forehead blinked open before closing again. #Where's the other guy?# He hadn't liked the feel of the missing human, he felt evil. When he had joined the fight the fur on Ranma's neck had wanted to stand up straight.

Ukyo's eye twitched, she understood Ranma was a no longer human but being telepathically addressed by the apparently three eyed mutant wolf cub was unsettling to say the least. The things she would put up with for the man she loved... "I knocked him out over there." She pointed into the distance off the road. She bent down to get a closer look at him and her action was duplicated by shampoo; Celas opted for standing since it required less movement of her injured leg, it didn't really hurt so badly if she didn't move. "Are you ok in there Ranchan?"

The puppy cocked its head sideways. #Yeah, I'm fine. You guys ok?# He had felt some pangs of pain from his bond thought the battle and seen Shampoo get punched once or twice.

"I'm ok Sugar." Ukyo had been relatively untouched throughout the encounter due to her primary enemies unwillingness to attack her.

"Shampoo ok." She had taken a few blows during the fight but she would only be bruised of a day or two at most.

-I'll be alright.- Celas answered despite bloodstains from five bullet holes and a knife wound as well as the burn mark on her arm. The bleeding had stopped however and she felt a slight tingle to all of the bullet wounds, they would heal relatively fast even if the knife wound and burn took a few days to heal completely.

Ranma frowned, as much as a puppy can, at the number of injuries she had. He would definitely have to teach her to heal and up her fighting training. He knew she would be fine in a day or two but he also knew it wouldn't be a comfortable wait. He stood and walked over to her, pressing his forehead against her, and willed her to become intangible. The five bullets fell down and clattered on the ground, that was the best he could really do to help. #Sit down and rest, try to think about healing.# He instructed her. He looked around. #Did pop run away?# The girls nodded and Ranma swore, though it just came out as growling. Well, Genma could find his own way back.

"Ranchan, why don't you change back?" Ukyo asked; her fianc? being a puppy was kind not something she wanted to deal with until she was more used to this whole supernatural thing.

Ranma nodded and padded over to his clothing. He growled again when he reached it; for a five foot radius around the clothing the air was still thick the smell of decay and the ground had become more like one would expect in a swamp. The clothing itself looked like it had suffered decades of decay. He recognized the trick as something Alucard had demonstrated once, a very nasty power to hit someone with. Remembering he had seen extra clothing in the crate he walked to it and phased through the side. He'd have to try Alucard's trick for making regenerating clothing later.

He stood up through the top of the box and looked down at the clothing, the jacket was backwards but he figured he'd done well for changing in the manner he had. He quickly took the jacket off and put it on correctly. Once again he was in the outfit Alucard had helped him choose that made him look much more like a real vampire.

Celas looked at the clothing a bit sadly, the outfit had been selected for the purpose of asking her out. She was more than a little annoyed her chances at Ranma had been ruined by the arrival of his unexpected fianc?s. Then again its not like she could have expected him to go out with her when he was taken.

-----

Back in London Alucard would have been laughing his head off at the knowledge Ranma was now in his vampiric attire. He knew after his efforts Ranma would be a beacon for any slightly sensitive person anyway but him willingly visually identifying himself as the likely target in the area was an amusing prospect.

As it was he just had to settle for laughing his head off at how Integral was reacting to discovering the sudden disappearance of all Hellsing's new arrivals and Walter mourning over the waste of the weapons he had designed for Ranma and Celas. He'd spent so long working on the weapons he had specially designed for them too, and they had almost been complete.

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AN: Ok so smaller than normal chapter. The crew is headed back to Japan. Why? Well I'd basically always planned on them going back there and things in the Hellsing series would not be significantly better off with Ranma around. Everything would probably just get extremely angsty and the human cast would probably all get badly injured. Hellsing is a bad series for characters not gifted with near immortality. Besides I'm much more for the amusing possibilities that could unfold with the entire Ranma cast around and the craziness of nerima.

Also sorry on the delay. It was partially due to all my pre-readers simultaneously disappearing and issues that are my own fault. This chapter has made it thru pre-readers but still tell me what you think so I have an idea what other people think should unfold. More should come along before too long. I have more kinda ready that just needs touch up. 


	8. On The Road Again

AN: OK, so it I'm actually dying so I figure I should post what I have of this despite it not being quite to my liking. I'll spend a little time getting each of the chapters basically proof read and then post them. I have several I'd wanted to make some changes to, but screw it. They're being posted as is, even though I had planned to make changes and additions to make them better.

Chaotic Evil Part 8. On The Road Again By the Jester of Doom

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The sun had long ago risen when Genma found the others again. After the battle had resolved they had left the swordsman on the road tied up. Ranma had decided to stick his sword under a very heavy nearby boulder to discourage pursuit. He'd tried to simply tie the sword in a knot but whatever the blade was made of was far stronger than the steel it looked like. The priest they had attempted to locate only to find he had escaped. Genma was bound to hide well enough, so as to not be found so they did not bother looking.

The group had covered a surprising amount of distance after the fight, only stopping when they had come to a small town. Ranma and Shampoo had carried all the gear while Ukyo helped Celas move while she healed. As much as they all would have liked letting Celas rest where she was he also did not like the idea of staying somewhere he had been attacked from all sides of. As it was they were all camped out in a small motel while Ukyo looked into getting supplies for cooking. She had had been the only one of them with some money on them and she insisted on having cooking supplies since she couldn't see where else they expected to get money for supplies during the trip. Two of her group-mates were nocturnal, one was a fat lazy bastard, and one a Chinese savage. As such she took it upon herself to handle such matters.

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"Come in!" Genma yelled lazily in response to a knock on the door. He had been told Ukyo was out and did not feel like getting the door for her. There was silence for a minute then the doorknob twisted experimentally. Then as the door opened slightly a canister was thrown into the room and the door was once again quickly slammed. Shampoo and Genma both looked at the can from their respective seats as it began to spew forth gas. "Shit"

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Ranma slid to the side to dodge an attack of one of his many pursuers. Then he slid back into his original stance. Or in any case he tried to. He tried rolling over again and grunted a little, something blocked his way that shouldn't be there. He opened his eyes as he realized he had been dreaming and looked at the obstacle. There was a large wooden stake rammed into the middle of his coffin's lining. Above him was a man wearing a gas-mask who looked to be about to shit himself. Apparently he hadn't expected a vampire who tossed and turned in their sleep.

Sitting up Ranma cracked his knuckles… he never did like being woken up early. At least an attempt on his life was kind of comforting in a weird way, it was like it had always been on the road with his pop.

-----

After finishing up with the newest vampire hunter Ranma walked back into their room though a wall. All wooden stakes were broken, as were all the man's silver tipped crossbow bolts, and his silver knives had been bent into the ground. The guy was lucky Ranma had realized Shampoo and Genma were only asleep or he would have gotten a lot more than just a lot of bruises and all his weapons busted. Well, he would also have to explain how he had gotten wedged so in the ventilation window of the next room's bathroom. The man's hips and chest were too large to go through and leave the metal frame intact, Ranma had to rely on phasing the too large parts through to get him stuck in there.

"Hey Ukyo." He said wearily to the girl as she entered the room. He continued to head back to his coffin.

"Ranchan? What are you doing up?"

Ranma opened his coffin and threw the stake that was still in it over his shoulder. "Vampire hunter. I got rid of him. G'night." He hopped into the coffin and let the lid drop.

"What? Ranchan!" She was ignored as she heard a yawn suddenly turn into a snore inside the casket. She looked at the two sleeping girls in the room and shook her head. They needed to set up some kind of daytime guard system. It was just damned irresponsible of them to sit there sleeping when Ranma was attacked while he slept.

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Ranma woke that night and rose through the lid while stretching. He found Ukyo had fallen asleep slumped against his coffin with her battle spatula in hand. Shampoo and Genma were still passed out on the bed and couch where they had fallen earlier. He couldn't help but notice absently that they all looked a bit more rosy than normal. Must have been an aspect of the motel's lighting.

Looking outside he noticed it was almost night out. Definitely dark enough for them to emerge for the night. He messaged to Celas silently. #wake up# as he did not want to disturb the others. He didn't want to bother them, he at least wanted to take a night or two to practice and see what he could do before he actually had to fight another vampire. Traveling would have distracted him too much from training.

Quietly lifting the edge of the coffin lid with one hand he put a finger in front of his lips to signify Celas should be quiet. Come to think of it while he was practicing and Celas was doing her katas Ranma would have to work on teaching her some Japanese like Alucard had showed him; a little trick of telepathically adding a sense of meaning to the words.

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Ranma ran over the mental checklist in his head of the abilities Alucard had taught him. Most of them had been easy. He had spent considerable time watching Alucard, combine that with vampiric instincts and Ranma's learning curve and the basics of all the attacks were easy. It was only problematic that refining or discovering new powers was what generally took vampires ages.

Mental attacks, he couldn't try as he had no target.

Wolf form, check, easy even, but pretty weak.

Bat form, likewise not hard, but he only managed to become a single very useless bat. Mist form, he didn't even see the point in trying…. What good is turning into fog if he can phase through things?

Summoning bugs, also worthless but it was little enough effort he got it down anyway.

Human with bat-wings, that had been surprisingly hard but was the one he saw a lot of promise for.

Telekinesis: that was damn hard if the stuff he tried to move was already more than an inch or so away from him. As such it was currently labeled useless in his mind.

Walking up things like a spider? That he had to admit was fun, though a little tough.

Making stuff decay really really fast… well if it stood still for a few minutes and was only about 3 inches wide he could handle it.

The last trick he had was making a little venom, that was the toughest thing of the night. He couldn't do much but if he managed to get it down well Alucard had said it would make even vampires continue to bleed a bit after getting cut, humans of course would have a very nasty bleeding wound or would even be poisoned.

Alucard had said there was much more, but that was all he really considered useful until Ranma got older. Then again Alucard mostly let people attack him and then shot them in the head at close range. His actual combat abilities mostly consisted of playing with the target's mind or combining alternate forms. Besides those he tended to just let his gun do all the work; guns are fast, lethal, and easy.

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Celas had trouble sleeping by the end of the night, Ranma's training was a bit odd to watch and the language training was still messing with her mind. Telepathic communication was something she was getting used to but the clashing of unfamiliar speech with familiar meaning was an awkward sensation that put her off some. When it comes from a person who is occasionally growing animal extremities it is of course worse. Beyond that the only other thing she could think of was of the prior attack made on them. Ranma was shrugging it off as commonplace; it still boggled her mind he was really a turned human like herself. She was not looking forward to the journey if this was something so common Ranma had become accustomed to it so quickly. Then again Ranma was the one thing she had relatively stable in her life right then and she planned to stick by him.

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The next day Shampoo grumbled as she worked her way through a practice kata in their hotel room. She had tried practicing out in front of the room so she could guard Ranma and have room to fight but Genma had tried to slide Ranma out the bathroom window and escape. The plan was of course unsuccessful due to the small size of the windows. It had only brought about a large amount of cursing from Ranma. As such she now had to practice inside so she could watch her transformed father-in-law as well.

What really had her annoyed however was that arrogant chef who had attached herself to Ranma. The annoying girl had actually tried to lecture her about having been asleep, as though she had some kind of choice in the matter. Her arguments to did not translate well in her broken Japanese. She had tried to settle it with a good old fashioned fight when debate failed but that had left a window for Genma to try sneaking away with Ranma's sleeping form. Ranma's fight with Genma for having received some bad sun-burns had interrupted their own.

As things stood she was for the moment relegated the task of guarding Ranma, and technically Celas as well, during the daylight hours. That maddening interloper had said she would take care of earning money. A useless seeming venture in Shampoo's mind; a real warrior could hunt and scavenge when on the road. As she had the useful job of guarding her husband however she did not complain, not about the job anyway. It would just endear her to him more when she was allowed by her great-grandmother to pursue him in earnest.

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Ranma awoke to see Genma passed out on the couch surrounded by beer cans and once again in his original male body. That must have been the celebration he had heard a few hours ago.

Both his fiancées looked toward him as he rose through his coffin's lid. They had been sitting on opposite sides of the room and making a point of watching the TV, which neither of them could really understand as it was in English, without acknowledging the other's presence. "Mornin'" he greeted them both and they responded in much the same manner. "I miss anything?" He wouldn't have been surprised if another demon slayer had appeared in his sleep.

"Not much." Ukyo informed him.

"Fat man is man again." Shampoo informed him.

"I picked up a cart today. It will make it easier if we don't have to carry your coffins." Ukyo informed him. She had gotten it very cheap from a store in the town where a farmer had sold it used. "Do you want to leave tonight? We could throw your father on it with the coffins."

Ranma shook his head in the negative. "Thanks Ucchan but nah, until I figure out how ta deal with a strong vampire I want ta train when I can." As an after thought he asked. "That ok with you guys?"

Shampoo nodded. Ukyo did likewise. "Sure thing sugar, we could move during the day too. It'd free you up to train at night and we'd get back to Japan faster."

Ranma nodded, it sounded like a good plan. "Works for me."

Ukyo was relieved, she could still sell some okonomiyaki where they were but sales were really going to be low until she hit Asia again and as she was taking it upon herself to support Ranma she wanted to make sure she had some profits. Thinking of supporting Ranma, he was probably was hungry; she had made food during the day but she had been asleep the last time Ranma had been up. "Sit down, I'll make you some food."

Ranma waved the idea off. In the corner of the room shampoo looked happy at his decision. "Don't bother, I aint able ta eat it. Blood's 'bout all I can taste anyway." Come to think of it he was a little bit hungry, he'd been burning a lot of power. He'd have to figure out how to find food eventually. For the moment though he didn't really have any ideas.

Ukyo's mind suddenly hit a major snag. She hadn't really connected that part of his vampiric nature to him yet. She had never been around him during a meal. Her cooking being something he couldn't appreciate was a major mental stumbling block. That was supposed to be one of the things that would win him over. She'd have to think about that.

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Ranma greeted Genma and his fiancées as he rose from his coffin for the night when he instinctually felt the sun setting. They were in a small camp that had been set up while he was asleep. He got his first look at the little cart that Ukyo had purchased for them; it was more of a trailer meant to be attached to a car or tractor but it was not too heavy to be pulled manually, especially not when Genma was around to be left with the duty of pulling it. He could see a tarp in the corner that they had used to cover the coffins to prevent notice as well, not that he realized that was its purpose.

"Sleep well Ranchan?" Ukyo asked.

"Yeah. Couldn't even tell we were moving." He looked them over briefly, and subconsciously licked his lips a little. "You guys are looking healthy. Gettin' a lot of exercise?"

"Another vampire hunter attack." Shampoo chipped in. "Shampoo take care of."

Ukyo shot the girl a dirty look for taking all the credit on that. "There sure are a lot of them." She noted.

Ranma just shrugged, he was attacked a lot normally, only the type of attacker had changed much. He knocked on the top of Celas' coffin to wake her. It wasn't long before the two vampires were beginning their practices for the night. Ukyo offered to spar with Celas when she saw the girl was practicing early martial arts katas. She would after all have a few hours of wakefulness that overlapped with them and Ranma was busy with practice. Shampoo offered as well, she could show up Ukyo by demonstrating her skill that way. Celas had of course been reluctant as she did not want to hurt them but quickly found out she was having trouble touching them even when she tried her best.

Genma meanwhile watched in disgrace as Ranma poked a small hole in his arm and just stood their watching the blood drop that formed. He wasn't even moving, and he wasn't in the proper positioning for classic meditation. He had hoped he could be lazy after a day of dragging the cart around but he could see his son was slacking off. "Boy, what do you think your doing? Quit sitting their and practice!"

"Shut up pop. I'm workin' on somethin'." The younger martial artist called back as he concentrated on mutating the blood into venom and keeping it that way. If he could perfect that he could use his normal fighting skills with some success against vampiric enemies.

Genma jumped to his feet and adopted a fighting stance. He'd make Ranma practice if he had to.

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Ranma rolled over and tried to ignore whoever was pounding on his coffin lid two days later. He was feeling a bit drained and didn't want to exert himself by waking up. As he continued to ignore the pounding however he found his world turned on its side as his coffin was knocked over.

Grunting as he was slammed into the side of the container the young Saotome decided to see what had someone so annoyed they would tip him over. As his head crested the surface of the casket he saw his fiancées and father engaged in combat with five men with eerily glowing melee weapons. He could see all the participants were getting quite a workout as they were all sweating and the blood was pumping hard enough that their blood vessels were much more visible than normal.

"Ranma late!" Shampoo complained from where she had kicked Ranma's bed off the cart. Ranma rose out of the coffin completely and felt the sun pricking at his skin a little. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his red-tinted sun glasses. He hated being woken up early….these guys weren't going to like him waking early much either.

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Shampoo watched her betrothed from across the fire they had set up in their campsite. The Japanese girl had set herself down next to him and was making advances. At least the fledgling vampire was not seeking his attention, instead she was practicing meditation nearby. She wished her grandmother had not forbidden her from doing the same as Ukyo. She did not at all like the prospect of letting the other girl get attention while she had to sit by the sidelines. Luckily her airen was not responding to the girl as warmly as she wanted. He was making a point of looking away and not staying too close.

"Ranma want spar with Shampoo?" The Amazon asked. Ranma looked a little tired but she knew he was the kind of person who felt invigorated by a good fight, and it would get him away from his other suitor. She might not be able to pursue him but she could still try to show him she was a great warrior.

Ranma looked up as the question was asked. He glanced for a second at Ukyo then nodded; a fight he could deal with, but other close proximity was not something he wanted at the moment.

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"Airen ok?" Shampoo asked a little worried as Ranma walked back to them from his most recent battle with a weakling vampire.

"Fine. Why?" The vampire responded grumpily as he approached. He didn't really want to look at them.

"Well you just ripped his head off sugar." Ukyo voiced her concern. That wasn't like him, it had actually been quite savage. He hadn't even tried to avoid being shot, he just walked up through the gunshots and ripped the young weakling vampire's throat from his shoulders.

They had been ejected from Hellsing a total of eight nights before hand. Ranma and Celas both had absolutely no blood intake in that time. While Celas was mostly just loosing steam in her training, Ranma was taking it much worse. Celas only was healing with her latent abilities and using her increased physical power. Ranma had been burning energy in every encounter. He'd even taken to only using power in fights and it still wasn't helping him much.

He let the bullets heal out of himself slowly, it would hurt more but he did not want his hunger to increase any if he could avoid it. It took less energy to take the bullets than it did to avoid them and still make sure his friends were not hit by bullets meant for him.

He didn't want to face anyone right then besides Celas and so opted to head back towards his coffin. Ukyo had other ideas though and caught him by the shoulder and spun him around. He couldn't help but flinch slightly when he saw her, his eyes were instantly drawn to the slight pulsing of blood moving her skin. His fangs elongated sharply. He made himself look past her with effort. "Ranchan is something wrong?"

He shook her arm off his shoulder and turned to go back to his coffin. "It's nothing ok, I'm just a bit hungry."

"I'll make you a okonomiyaki." She offered following behind him.

Ranma sighed slightly and wished it were that easy. "That wont do nothin'."

"Come on Ranchan it, can't hurt to try it."

Well, swallowing solid food had actually hurt some when he had tried it back at Hellsing, but on the other hand if it maybe gave him even a little more energy he would do it. "Ok." He sighed out.

It wasn't long before she had her grill set up and was busy fixing up an okonomiyaki. Ranma just sat and watched his hands while she did so. It really creeped him out to look at people like they were food, especially his friends. He hadn't noticed it at first, but after he had expended enough of his energy he had realized why he was taking extra note of their health.

"All done sugar." Ukyo told him and he looked up to see the okonomiyaki being served to him. He couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight of the bat she had drawn on it in sauce. It was just like when he'd been a kid.

He picked up the creation and took a bite of it. He almost choked on it, he had not expected flavor. Sure the okonomiyaki still tasted like ash but there was blood on it, the bat had not been drawn for him in sauce. Despite his surprise he could not help but eat the rest at a frenzied pace. Her blood was delicious, strong, healthy, virgin blood. It by no means filled him but it certainly helped take some of the edge off of his hunger.

Ukyo smiled as she watched Ranma demolish her okonomiyaki. She was happy she could help, and to see her fiancée enjoying her food again.

-----

Ranma growled in annoyance as his father forced him to spar. Just because he had had a little snack of Ukyo's blood the night before didn't mean he felt up to unneeded exercise. He had however found the hard way that if he flatly refused to fight Genma would not get tired of attacking him, and becoming intangible was a waste of power.

He liked the fact that Ukyo had volunteered some of her blood to him, it was very nice, though the idea of actually taking a friend's blood to live off of disturbed him some. He'd much rather find a good source of nourishment that didn't have him feeding off her. She was his friend after all, he could handle the emergency blood Ukyo had already given but actually coming to think of her as a food source was something he wanted to avoid at all costs.

The younger Saotome dodged a kick from his father and retaliated with a punch at his father's face, which caught him with a nail. A small amount of blood dripped out of the resulting injury and a small bit caught on his finger. He brought it back to his mouth and almost licked at it instinctively. He caught himself however, while he didn't want to hurt the girls the idea of drinking his father's blood was more just gross to him. Then again he noticed Celas had stopped and was watching them while biting her lip. Well, Genma was a big guy. He had some blood to spare. And Celas did need some. Now if he could just get some for her without having to cut Genma into ribbons, not that he would mind hurting his father much.

Ranma thought about the dilemma for a moment as Genma attacked him. Then he hit on a good simple idea. He punched at his father's face again so his fist would be in close proximity. Genma dodged but Ranma just needed to be close. He focused a little power and pulled the blood from his father cut into his hand. He pulled it back and looked at the small ball of moving blood hovering over his palm. Genma had a shocked look on his face. Yep. This idea would work well, though he was burning more power then he would like by holding the blood in shape. He was going to need a cup.

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Celas was having doubts as she looked down at the cup of blood she had been given. She hadn't felt too good about accepting it the first time Ranma had given her Genma's blood either. The cup she held was not of Genma's blood but instead came from one of their frequent nightly attackers. She had grudgingly accepted Genma's blood out of a mixture of hunger and reasoning. The reasoning being Ranma decided he would be siphoning a little from Genma whenever the man would not leave him alone when tired. Ranma had called it "motivation" to both get better and to leave him alone when he was feeling drained. And since Ranma didn't want to drink his own family blood that left her to do so unless she wanted it to be wasted; a dilemma that eventually resulted in her being less hungry.

Taking it from Genma was one thing, he was Genma after all and anyone who knew him could not care that he had lost some blood, it was the theft of strangers' blood that made her uneasy. Ranma had justified that one to himself as well but she couldn't help feeling somewhat like a monster for drinking the blood. Then again as Ranma had said if the people wasted his time and energy because they wanted to kill him he thought they at least owed him a meal. Besides, the siphoning did decrease their willingness to fight a bit. Her main wish was just that she hadn't seen the fear that sometimes shone in their eyes when they realized Ranma could steal their blood without biting them. That was what was really putting her off and making her feel bad.

She took a sip of her drink; then again she knew Ranma wasn't the monster they all assumed he was.

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Genma watched his son with some fear as he was once again practicing his vampiric abilities. The boy's behavior was a bit unsettling. The idea of collecting his blood was far too ominous a reminder of the vampire at Hellsing. Ranma only did it to him during sparing, and it was admittedly a useful attack, but it still gave him the heebie-jeebies.

Shampoo meanwhile watched Ukyo training with Celas in how to throw her daggers. The fledgling vampire had quite a collection growing. Many of the knives that were inevitably stuck into her were not able to be returned in time due to their owners fleeing for their lives. Ranma had received two in the same manner, which assisted him greatly in his fights, but Celas had more than a dozen.

She didn't like the girl much. Ukyo seemed to not notice how much the fledgling vampire liked her sire. Shampoo could see it however. The girl wasn't making any advances but she clearly liked him. That didn't sit well with the Amazon. She had awoken silently several times to watch the two vampires in the night and the woman seemed to be resigned to not pursuing her airen. She would tolerate it and not make any trouble dispite her dislike for the situation. She was not to pursue Ranma openly at the moment after all, she had promised her great-grand-mother. For now she would just be present to spoil any of the Japanese girl's attempts to get intimate and prove herself to her husband in other ways.

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Ukyo looked regrettably at the large pile of clothing she had needed to purchase. She liked Celas, she really did. The woman was a good person, even if she was a vampire. Ukyo couldn't even really dislike her for the fact she liked Ranchan considering she wasn't acting on it. And Celas worked hard to protect them from armed opponents whenever they arrived so there was less chance of someone who couldn't heal bullet wounds getting shot. But the woman cost a fortune in new clothing.

Ranma had whatever he did to make his clothing reform after taking damage. Genma, Shampoo, and herself rarely needed new attire due to battle. Celas however tended to run through an outfit every few encounters. Bloodstains, cuts, tears, bullet holes, even the occasional burn mark. It was a small price to pay of course to keep from having any of her own bullet wounds but still it was amazing the kind of damage the girl tended to receive.

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It would seem common sense but vampires are not very welcome in most locations. Ranma on the other hand had only learned just how bad the reactions tend to be when in a small town out in the middle of nowhere he had accidently been spotted while fighting with a priest.

The thing is no matter how defensively you're fighting people tend to assume the worst when you start gathering your opponents blood. It was a simple fight and after knocking the reverend unconscious he had assured the few scared spectators that were watching that he was really a very friendly vampire. That was when he discovered most people ignore the word friendly when attached to the word vampire. He also discovered a surprisingly large percent of the population owned pitchforks and torches, though he had no idea why.

-----

Ranma officially decided he disliked mental attacks. He lay back on the roof of the inn they were at and thought about earlier that night. He'd been fighting one of the demon hunters that was unlucky enough to show up at night. Ranma had been well fed recently and had some energy to burn if he felt the desire to do so. As such he decided to use the new attacker as a test subject for one of his untested moves.

It should be noted that most of Alucard's mental attacks were designed to turn people into weeping balls of suffering as their worst fears tormented them. Ranma of course did not approve of much more than a slight scaring and as such was leaving those attacks untested for the foreseeable future. One of the few things he knew to be relatively safe was a kind of tunnel of souls. It was a simple illusion calling up visions of the people killed by the target in an illusory landscape. The idea behind it was simple, against an opponent who had killed large numbers you could hide among the crowds. If there were not that many it was still an unsettling experience.

Now the idea of testing the attack was sound. Worst come to worst should he fail, which he considered unlikely, he could still defeat his foe the good old fashioned way. If his illusion was weak the enemy would break it and once again no real downside would occur. The only problem was that it had worked as it should. And it worked on a very industrious demon hunter. So while Ranma expected to find his illusion to be a tunnel full of humans it had instead been a mess of nightmarish monsters.

Ranma had felt really bad for the guy when he fell to the floor in fear. It must have seemed to him like Ranma had called out every demon in hell. Ranma wasn't above giving people a bit of a scare but that had probably been a bit too much.

The hunter had of course tried to kill him after Ranma stopped the power, told him it had just been an illusion, and had given him a little time to build his nerve back up. Ranma had felt bad enough he didn't even fight back. Actually he came extremely close to apologizing, though the best he did was admitting he had just been testing the attack. Instead he just led the guy away before disappearing into the ground. He figured if the guy was serious enough to come back he'd have to figure out what to do then but at the moment the guy seemed gone.

-----

Genma rubbed his hands together to work the chill out of them. Now that they'd finally reached an area with mountain temples he had managed to escape with Ranma's coffin and haul him up the mountain. He didn't really have anything against the western religions but when looking for a cure for some strange ailment one always sought out a temple on the top of a ragged mountain. So if anyone could fix his son this was a good place to look.

Genma saw a dozen monks suddenly step out of an errant snow filled wall of wind. "Oh, good, good." He began as they started approaching him slowly. Now he could convince them to carry the casket for him.

Ranma woke up to the sound of his father bouncing hard against the lid of his coffin. Wearily he pushed open the hood and got a look at his opponents. Twelve men with the aura of evil he had learned most holy individuals possessed. Too bad they were so devout; this meal wouldn't taste very good, on the other hand with twelve of them it sure would be filling.

-----

Shampoo looked over her score card. The stupid Japanese girl had managed to tie with her that day. Shampoo had kept a narrow lead for several days but that lead was now gone. Originally she and Ukyo had agreed on tallying the enemies they had fought off to demonstrate who the best warrior was and who was better at protecting Ranma. Then Ranma had discovered it and out of competitiveness had begun to keep a tally with them. Then he insisted his father be included. After all he knew his father would be loosing and wanted to rub it in his face. Celas ended up involved simply because everyone else was.

The Amazon and chef were leading in the departments of demon slayers and holy men. They attacked in the day mostly. Only a few, who usually looked hurried or surprised, attacked at night. And due to the large number of them and their tendency to work in small groups the two women had the most tallies on their cards.

Ranma meanwhile had the most vampires tallied, and most of the humans who attacked at night. Added to that was a minor number of ghouls. Celas by far had defeated the most ghouls, and a few vampires, but no humans; she did not like hurting humans and she still wasn't good at subduing them without causing injury. Genma meanwhile had virtually no Tallies, he only fought when he was endangered and he avoided vampires like the plague. His response to them was simply hit them hard and kill it fast if he couldn't run.

The final categories had been miscellaneous threats and Genma related threats. They had needed to add that first one due to the were-wolf incident. Then there had been the dire-bear. Not to mention the gypsies' menagerie of evil. Ranma was of course dominating in that area. They had needed to add the latter due to the fat man's tendencies to try to run off with Ranma or attempts to get him 'cured'. Once again the human girls were leading here, though Celas had stopped an attempt or two. Strangely enough it was the one category in which Genma was doing well, as he had a tendency to foil his own plans.

-----

Ranma decided he liked Asia a lot more than Europe as he looked over the twenty defeated ninjas. What ninjas were doing this far from Japan he had no idea. It was quickly becoming clear to him that in while there were more lone-wolf strong enemies in Europe there were tons of teams in Asia. Sure, he had more strange monsters to deal with and less in the way of vampires but he was flexible. He could adapt. He'd figured out how to handle the dragon-panda hybrid thing after an hour or so. He'd discovered bull demons did not like his red shirt in record time. He'd even figured out when some dude calls lighting from the sky by reading a book a quick book burning fixes everything. But whatever new stuff was thrown at him he wouldn't mind if people came at him in groups like this. It was like buffets delivered right to him. All it cost was a major butt kicking, and he gave those away to everyone who wanted one.

-----

Alucard shivered slightly and looked up from his bowl of ice-cream. He had the strange feeling he had inadvertently caused someone's happiness. He could not think of who or how though. Certainly not Ranma, his 'cosmic kick-me sign' would be causing the boy a lot of interesting training but certainly nothing particularly nice. It couldn't be Walter; he had been busy sorting out Alucard's attempts to "welcome" all Hellsing's newest troops after the mess where the mansion was attacked by ghoul shock troops. It most certainly wasn't Integral, he had ensured every beverage that found its way to her was decaffeinated; an amazingly effective form of torture. It most certainly was not the troops, that weren't even a real option. He shivered again. He glanced down at his bowl. Perhaps he just needed to cut down on the ice cream… fat chance of that; he'd rather make people happy.

-----

Ranma had noticed a certain pattern to vampire attacks in Europe. Weaker vampires relied heavily on ghouls and firearms. Stronger ones might employ the same tactics however tended to fall into three categories. The simplest relied on brute force of either their normal bodies or transformed states of wolf, bears, and the like; they could be dealt with without too much trouble thanks to a large supply of skilled martial artists and several anti-vampire weapons. The second tried to use mind control techniques or illusions. Those were good plans in theory but when forced with concentrating entirely on subduing Ranma or letting him break control they tended to focus on him, and that was a good way to get a holy weapon in the back. The third group tended to have the same problems as the first and second, they just tried to destroy him with ungodly powerful attacks, such as zones of decay that literally caused trees to melt. All in all however they tended to be an entirely un-creative lot with their powers. As such he was completely unprepared as a woman rode a twenty foot golem of fused corpses out of the forest surrounding their campsite.

Celas looked up from performing a kata Ukyo had shown her for use with daggers. Behind her she could hear Ranma start swearing. In front of her was something she expected would hurt, quite badly. She was getting more numbed to the pain of injuries but that thing looked damn unpleasant.

She gripped her daggers tighter and prepared to attack the monstrosity. Once it was down Ranma would have already detained the vampire. It looked like if she attacked it from behind it may not be able to hit her, it's form was bent far forwards leaving its back bent. She had begun to step forward but Ranma called her off. #Forget about that thing! Drop the daggers, and shoot her as soon as I have her distracted!# The daggers fell from Celas' hands almost as much from surprise as from Ranma's instructions. Ranma NEVER liked killing women, even if they were undead ones that attacked them. He had tried to spare them but in the end Shampoo or Celas had to do the dirty work. He still refused to do it himself. He barely restrained himself to let them do it. Likewise Ranma hated the idea of using the gun now that he could fight on his own. They had retained the single bullet they had been given in case they encountered something that was unstoppable by their power alone.

Ranma yelled mentally to wake everyone up. It was much harder to ignore such a cry than it was to ignore sounds. Swearing he made a small gash in one wrist with a nail. He let the blood soak down over his hands before letting the wound heal. He concentrated and the blood took on a much sicklier green tint than its original red and became venomous. He had been practicing that move a great deal since it would allow hand-to-hand combat. He had watched the woman ride in and had expected the goliath she rode on to be a threat, but then he had seen how much energy she had and immediately decided the golem would be child's play.

The golem charged Ranma and smashed the ground where he had stood with both arms, creating a wide but shallow crater. Ranma landed from jumping back. The woman just watched from the monster's head as it turned to face him again. She had a look of minor amusement on her face. She was trying to test him, to assess his worth in a fight before joining in herself. Ranma couldn't help but smirk at the idea, she was giving him time to attack first and for the others to wake up.

He looked over to his left expecting to see the others rising and found them still in their beds; a thick mist occupied the area. He swore to himself; he knew that power, a gas that made people lethargic to the point of sleeping despite any amount of stimulation. Even burning the victim alive would not rouse the person with the strength she was using. And he had no idea how she was forming it away from her, he had not noticed power being sent into the area. The fight was already far too one-sided, he did not enjoy the loss of silver weaponry wielding allies as well.

He needed tactics and all the advantages he could get to win against someone like this. He willed a pair of six foot long batwings to grow on each side of his back. "So you wanna make me do this alone eh?" The woman just crooked an eyebrow at him, of course she probably didn't speak Japanese or any English for that matter. Ranma smirked at her, if she couldn't understand his language she would be able to understand that.

Ranma pushed off with the wings and dove towards her. He slashed at her with his left hand a swooped over to his right. The woman just blocked the attack with one arm and watched the four slashes it created. She watched the wounds and he could feel her testing how much energy was needed to heal them. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Celas moving back into the trees. If she wasn't as visible her attack may be more of a surprise.

The woman seemed satisfied when she finished healing her wounds and gave Ranma a smile of her own. Then she virtually exploded in a mass of wings and feathers as a mixture of bats and ravens began to scatter from their central location. Celas could hear Ranma swearing from her vantage point; a single bullet would not be useful on many bodies.

Not giving up on the chance the woman would change tactics Ranma decided he would throw himself head-long at his opponent. If nothing else the Saotome school of martial arts was largely aerial style so he might have a chance. He dove again, this time at a raven located over his sleeping companions. He managed to cause it to explode in a burst of feathers as he ripped it apart but he was set on from a dozen sides at once as the other animals surrounded him.

Ranma flapped his wings hard to rise over the group. The creatures around him scattered as he did so, others flew in to peck claw or bite him as he rose. He repeated the process five times. The next a furry bat carcass fell to the ground. Then another. Then two ravens. Then one of each. The last time seemed sloppy, the enemies moved out of his way and he neglected to change course after them. Rather than follow the same course of action he flew across the clearing at a distant bird. Once again he did not land a hit.

Settling down on the ground after the latest attempt Ranma willed the wings away and they vanished in a black mist that recoiled into his shoulder blades. He no longer needed the wings, they were bulky and only provided more of a target. Instead of healing the damage they had taken it was better to dismiss them and try to heal the rest of the cuts that were decorating his body. The wounds wouldn't close however, he just managed to slow the bleeding some. He still was left with a lot of leaking wounds.

Ignoring any idea of caution Ranma leapt into the midst of the winged creatures and began slashing and kicking with greater ferocity. #Wake up!# As gravity tried to pull him down he just expended some energy to hover and continue his assault. #WAKE UP!# Ranma continued to beat the small creatures back. A small mound of them was forming on the ground below him. The pile itself was rapidly turning more red the longer he remained over it, his wounds still bleeding. They were landing a lot of new hits, but only due to sheer number and his own attacks were doing more damage per hit. #WAKE UP!#

Suddenly Ranma was surprised to find the veritable wall of flying black flesh in front of him was not solid as the arm of the golem flew through the intangible mess. Ranma found he needed to pry himself out of a tree after the attack. The golem was stalking up in front of him and the winged beasts were forming a half dome around them. And then two in the back exploded, and three lost wings very suddenly, then another fell from the air shishkabobed on knife. Ranma couldn't help but smile as he used the distraction and charged, leaping over the golem; despite its origin a gas is a gas, and a twelve foot wing span can clear even the thickest mist in only a few dives.

Suddenly with the massive number of attacks capable of being launched the form of bats and ravens was no longer an advantage. The creatures could act clumsily left on their own but required specific direction of the central "hive mind" to perform well in skillful combat, and attention can only be split so many ways. As this was the case the animals all flew up, and away, before recombining. Flight had not been an advantage so the female vampire switched to land combat to work in tandem with her golem. A large grizzly bear formed in the air and with a small push of power was angled in a dive at Ranma.

As the creature fell Ranma took up a waiting stance. A dagger flew through the bear. A vacuum blade passed harmlessly through as well. It spun in the air to avoid a chain and add power to its attack as it reached out a claw. If it managed to hit Ranma it would take his head off in a manner that would not grow back. If it failed, there was a golem approaching Ranma rapidly from behind.

Then suddenly the pigtailed boy was in the air on a collision course. But a bullet got there first. A hit to the heart weakened her. A hand jabbing through her neck compounded it. Then a chain sunk in to her back as two knives and two vacuum blades bit in as well. Then she felt herself turn in the air as another hand followed the path the bullet had taken. And then she was between the golem and Ranma, and of course the thing was too stupid and uncoordinated to yield its attack just because she was there.

Ranma jerked from the impact as the body beneath him crashed into an oversized mockery of a fist. Then the creature began to fall backwards, off balance and without its creator to sustain its life. He felt the corpses under him turn to ash and he began to sink into the pile of remains they left behind. He watched blood drip down his arm into the ash. His last thought before darkness took him was what he wouldn't give right then for another ninja buffet.


End file.
